hate, a blade, and elbow grease

So I attacked the bathroom at the new apartment on Saturday.  Like an all-out assault motivated by my hate for it. 

I researched how to remove caulking, how to clean grout, how to paint a sink stand, and purchased all necessary supplies during an hour and a half long date at Lowes on Friday.  

Ok, so here is the truth:  NYC apartment bathrooms are notorious for being gross and most people just live with it.  Everyone has mold. The grout is always ancient and falling out.  There are leaks.  The tubs are stained.  People know and accept this, turning blind eyes to the grossness in other people's apartments and ignoring the nasty every morning when they shower.  I've even done this at my current apartment.

But this new bathroom...it's unacceptable.  My mom can attest, compared to the rest of the apartment the bathroom is horrific. 

So I set out to fix it.  Or at least do a better job at hiding the nasty.

I removed the medicine cabinet/mirror as the hardware was fully rusted through and the exterior was peeling off.  We will be replacing it even though it will have to stay in place if we move. 

The caulking along the sink and tub was three layers thick.  I scrapped off the most recent white silicone layer clearly added to poorly "hide" the older layer beneath which was a peach colored rubber-ish ancient nasty.  The final layer was some sort of plaster.  Removing all of this took a caulk removing tool, goo gone, a screwdriver and flat head, a heck of a lot of arm power, sandpaper, and a the blade of an xacto knife.  There is still a lot there but it looks a lot better and now we have a relatively clean and smooth surface to apply new caulking.  Here is a before/after pic so you understand how bad it was and I'm not just being dramatic. 

The sink stand (or whatever you call it) is made of crappy particle board with a white paper covering.  This paper was peeling up at the bottom where there was evident water damage.  My theory is the previous tenant died in the bathtub which overflowed and flooded the floor and caused the sink stand to warp, mold, moisten the paper to causing peeling, and for the hardware to rust.  What other explanation is there?

I took the doors off and Dan helped to sand everything down, paint a coat of primer, sand again, and paint another coat of primer.  The next step is to paint the doors and stand green and re-do the caulking. 

Can't wait for the reveal!