Our main bathroom has undergone quite a few changes over the years we've been here. Mostly just in color scheme and accessories, but recently in materials too. When we moved in it was big and plain jane. White walls and lots of oak. I was in a blue phase and immediately painted it a slate blue, which we've had for about 5 years.
This picture is not very accurate when it comes to the true colors of the room. I will warn you now, this bathroom is IMPOSSIBLE to take a good picture in. I've swapped all of the light bulbs from warm to cool but with absolutely NO natural light coming in I've just resigned myself to never getting a great picture in here. All of these pics are darker than they appear in real life...
When I was pregnant with Ava I continued her blue/pink color scheme in here for a few years and then swapped it out for a light brown/caramel look.
This summer as I was painting I decided the blue needed to go. I could not decide what to do in here and we hadn't chosen flooring yet so I just decided to use the same color we had in both bedrooms, because we loved it AND I had a full gallon that we never opened.
At first when I got it on the walls, I loved it. It was a welcome change from the blue but I was a little bit worried it might be too dark. Because of the lack of natural light, it looked different than what the bedrooms did and it sort of took on an army green tone sometimes.
It worked ok with the pops of white everywhere and the white flooring, but I was worried because I knew we were taking that white linoleum out and I had NO intention of putting white tile in its' place. I hated having a white floor, it was nearly impossible to keep clean or to hide any dirt whatsoever.
Plus the oak vanity took on a really red look with this shade of brown and I wasn't wild about that. Like the kitchen we didn't want to sink tons of money in here and change the fixtures or the countertops. We ultimately decided to update the flooring, the faucets, the hardware, and the paint to get the most impact for our dollar.
I brought home many tile samples, trying to figure out what look I was after before I settled on these. They are very modern, 12x24 tiles, with a textured grain pattern. They look grey in this shot, but up close you can see a light grey, a light tan and a light blue running through it on a white backdrop. It's very subtle but it flows well with the rest of the colors in our kitchen and living room.
Maybe you can see it a little better in this picture? I knew we wanted tile for resale purposes and I wanted a more modern look instead of the cheap square tiles that everyone uses and that would have been expected here. We bought them at Tile Liquidators and got a fantastic price on them so actually they turned out being cheaper than what we would have gotten at like Home Depot or Lowe's. Bringing them home to our bad lighting and the brown on the walls however made me realize I was destined to re-paint this bathroom, again.
I didn't want to re-paint at all, but I loved the tile and didn't want to look for another one. The brown just wasn't settling well with me anyway so I went much, much lighter with a stone color. I was literally painting the night before the tile people came when Travis made me quit so I could get some sleep and so we wouldn't make them pass out from all the fumes. Fun times...
Watching the tile people come and do their thing was quite an education.
If you are friends with me on facebook, this is the day when the toilets showed up in the kids' room!
This was supposed to be a much more complicated process because the guy who bid the job didn't realize (because he didn't check) that we had concrete underneath the linoleum. Once the installers discovered that was the case the job went much, much faster.
This is pre-grout, but already I loved the look!
Again, pre-grout, that's why the lines are so harsh. We chose a sand colored grout so that it would be easy to keep clean and hide the dirt. You'll see in in the finished pictures below.
Today, this is the way our bathroom looks! Sort of, I'm still playing with accessories and we still have to install a new faucet. I know, I know...always something to finish, right?
It's so hard to convey the actual color of the walls and the tile but this is pretty close. I love how light and bright it looks in here and we are SO happy with the tile.
I think the flooring and the new wall color have helped to make the oak and the white countertops and fixtures look as good as they possibly can. Of course I'd love to have a white vanity in here with marble tops and subway tiles, but since this home is not where we want to spend all of our money, I'm very happy with everything in here.
You can see the grains in the tile really well here and how the sand colored grout really disappears into the tile. Much better than the black lines from the mud!
I found this shower curtain that I really liked and I decided I wanted to pull a dark grey in with towels too. It looks a little salmon-y in this pic, the one below is a better representation of the actual colors agains the new wall color.
I love that this curtain brings in the browns and the blues from the rest of our house with some pops of pink too.
Much better in here than the dark brown!
Trav's uncle added hardware in here as well for us and we swapped out the plastic outlet covers for brushed nickel ones. It's amazing how those little touches...
...along with new paint and new flooring really make a big impact! I've got some ideas for artwork on the walls but I haven't gotten around to that yet. Clearly I also need to clean the baseboards after the tile people added a little "character" to them!
We are enjoying this new look so much and when the day comes to sell, I'm hoping the next owner will like it too! They'll never know what an improvement it is from white walls and white linoleum, but I will. In another post I'll show you what we did in our other bathroom too. It's another great makeover but a different look than this one! Stay tuned friends, I know you will be losing sleep in anticipation! Ha ha!!
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