Decorating help
I need suggestions on what to do with a bathroom. I’d say 90% of the rooms in this house are covered in wallpaper. Not all of them are fully wallpapered, some are papered at the bottom with paint at the top or have at least wallpaper borders. I’m going to guess that they’ve been that way for years before we moved in. We’ve done one bathroom and the color choices were easy, but this next one not so much. If you read the old blog, you may remember me complaining about it, and how long it took to redo it. I still swear someone used superglue to get the edges to lay flat.
Now it’s time to tackle another bathroom. I’m sure orange butterflies were all the rage at some point, but now they are a bit outdated. So take a look at these and give me ideas. The wall tile looks like an orange-ish tan color in real life.
Here’s the view from the hall.
Here we have a close-up of a lovely orange-brown butterfly and the awful grout color. That’s not dirt, it’s the actual color. I guess it was meant to hide dirt?
Why did they take the tile so far out past the tub? To me, it looks weird when it only goes behind part of the tank. If they’d ended the wall tile at the tub edge, I think I could’ve hidden it with a shower curtain and had an easier time of selecting a paint color.
The color of the floor tile doesn’t actually match the wall tile.
I don’t really want to paint the room white because I don’t like white walls, but if that’s the only thing that will work that’s what I’ll do. I’d like to give it some color, but I don’t know what color is going to go with those tiles that isn’t orange or brown. If I were going to stay here, I’d rip all those tiles off the wall and replace them with white ones. However, since we’re going to be selling the house within a year, I want to make it look nicer with the least amount of work. So, give me suggestions on how to bring this room up to date, even if it is just ripping off the paper (please don’t let there be more superglue) and painting it white. Would it be worth it to take out those columns of tile that extend so far out or should I just leave well enough alone and let the new owners decide what to do with it? Will white make those tiles more of an eyesore?
September 19th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Oh, I feel your pain! The boy’s bathroom had 7 layers of wallpaper starting in 1972! It was horrible.
I would almost suggest maybe a sage green? Something light, nothing on the limey side. Maybe do a texture with it? Like a tannish basecoat and then brush the sage over it?
Sometimes you wonder what people were thinking!
Good luck.
September 19th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
That tile placement is so strange! I can’t come up with a different color suggestion, but I have a thought about the area behind the toilet. If you put a potted (fake) orchid on the left side of the tank top and let the flowers droop toward the right side, would it take your attention away from the odd tile placement?
Even though it’s tempting to pull the tile off the wall, I wouldn’t do it. There’s always a chance that you’ll uncover a problem or create a new one. The tile is nothing that would keep someone from buying the house.
September 19th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Sandy beat me to it - I was going to suggest sage green too. Seems like it would go nicely with the tile, and just seems like it would suit the room. You can also consider having the tiles reglazed. We did that in our other house. I don’t know how expensive it was, but they just come in and spray them. Ours went from yellow to white and looked really good - not like they were painted at all.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:49 am
I would leave the tile alone as that is a huge project and you won’t get your money out of it. I would strip the wall paper and paint the walls–maybe a pretty very soft light blue (I usually don’t look at blue paint chips–I go the whites and look for a blue-tinted white. You’d be surprised at how blue it comes out!) the tile looks kinda like a sand color and blue looks really good and clean with that. then you could accessorise with chrome or oiled bronze fixtures and towel racks to get a generic, but up-to-date pottery barn look. or you could repaper with shiny wallpaper and paint everything orange and go retro 70’s….LOL! just kidding!
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:14 am
So orange is out then? Let’s just scrap my copper suggestion (I’m a lover of COLOR!) and stick with something neutral. If you were going to keep living in the house I don’t think I could in good conscience let you go with white, but since it’s to sell the house…… you know, neutral is good I guess. Wait, now I’m thinking of doing one of MY bathrooms over in copper and verdigris.
September 25th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Well - since you are thinking in terms of selling the house I am with Sandy and Jane - a nice light sage. If it would be just for you, I would use a bright color. Our guest bathroom is red
And the tiles are really weird. Wonder what they were taking while tiling???