I recently renovated an old Victorian-era house that I purchased. The house was beautiful – hardwood floors, tall ceilings and real tile in all of the bathrooms. I had always heard that it was good to have authentic tile in a bathroom, but the tile in this old house was grimy, gross and so dirty that not even the strongest cleaning agents could clean it. I had no idea what to do about the wall. What’s more – I did not have a huge budget to hire someone to come in and save my house.
I spent an afternoon in the home improvement store trying to figure out how to fix up the older things in my home on my tight budget. I could do simple things, like install new light fixtures or doorknobs. But I didn’t know what to do about the hideous tile.
Because my house was so old and this was one of the earliest examples of tile in a home, I knew that behind the layer of tile, was a layer of solid cement. The cement would have been placed on steel grates and bolded to the frame of the wall. To remove the steal grates and tiles would have been a huge and strenuous job. I really wasn’t up for it and I didn’t have any friends that would be up for it either, I imagined.
I thought about painting over the tile, as I have seen some people do. But it always tends to look like they are covering up the dirt. I didn’t want to have a bad job or make the house look worse than it already did. Finally, I wondered down the isle where they have the stucco and cement.
I realized that I could easily just put a layer of stucco on top of the tile and give it cool texture so that it looked like it was purposeful. So that’s exactly what I ended up doing.
First, I purchased two large bags of stucco powder, a mixing bowl and a flat-edged blade. I laid a plastic sheet all around the floor of my bathroom at the base. From there, I mixed the stucco mixture with an appropriate amount of water and began applying the mixture to the wall in crazy strokes. I didn’t stick with one pattern in particular, but rather, opted for something more on the wild side – left, right, up, down, diagonal, you name it!
Once the stucco was completely covering every inch of the wall, I let it dry overnight. The next day, I went in and painted it with a faux finish in maroon and bright red. The texture really accentuates the two colors and makes it appear very rich and full of movement.
Stucco is so easy to apply. I’m even thinking about putting it in other rooms of my house, like my kitchen and bedroom. I think that the best part about stucco is that you can get chaotic and wild and it still looks great – even better!