Ever since the begining of the year, I have been dreaming up all sorts of options to spruce up our home here in Colorado! We moved in in July and did some painting initially, but then we kind of paused all of that for the last few months. Well, I’m ready to get the rollers back out again! There’s paint swatches on our bedroom wall, and we only half got rid of all of the gray that was all over the house! Side note – I’m not a huge fan of gray walls. I feel like they can make your home feel like a constant rainy day and who really wants that? Anyway, we also only have one full bathroom in the house. There is one in the basement and a powder room, but only 1 full bath in the main levels! And it’s nothing special and not that big and it has no windows. The home would benefit hugely from a full remodel, but that’s just not happening any time soon Our basement need some more help and our deck needs to be re done, so the bathroom is not highest priority. However, this will be a rental home at some point in the future, so I want to at least update it a little to make it prettier!
The bathroom’s main fixtures will all stay in place. The vanity, counter, mirror, shower, tub, toilet – those things are not getting replaced. The tile on the floors is an off white, biscuity color, and the shower tiles are a cream/ivory color. The walls are a bright, flat white that almost looks like primer white. It looks like the previous owners painted the vanity from oak to white. And they didn’t do a great job. The paint is streaky, and there are yellowish spots. Not sure what happened, but it’s not a good look.
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I’ve been spending some time working on creating rood boards or room renderings, and I created 3 different options for finishing out this bathroom.

First, the light and bright bath. In this option I would clean and paint the shower tiles a bright white. The vanity would get a new coat of white paint, and the walls and ceiling would be painted in the same white color. All of the fixtures would be a shiny chrome with light, breezy artwork, light gray linens, and shower curtain with maybe some pops of pink. I chose these finishes to help brighten the room since it has no window, and bounce light around more with the shiny chrome finishes. The reason this option won’t work is the tile on the floor and the counters. There is so much warmth in the tile floors and the counters that the bright white will make it look dingy. If I really wanted to go with this option, I COULD paint the floors and the counters, but I don’t know if I really want to do all of that.

Next option – forget the light colors, and go saturated. Small bathrooms can be the perfect place to add a saturated or fun color into your home. In this option, I would paint the walls a beautiful teal color (Aegean Teal by Benjamin Moore) and paint the vanity black or a very dark gray ( I love this Tulsa Twilight color by Benjamin Moore). I would add a lighter wood or white oak floating shelved to the wall over the toilet and mixed metals in the hardware and light fixtures. I would give the shower tile a huge scrubbing, but probably leave it off white colored.

Option number 3 – wallpaper!! I am loving all of the fun and beautiful wall paper that is so popular right now! This small bathroom is a great place for fun papers too. The best thing about the one I chose here is that is is also removable! I really wanted to play up the warmer tones in the tiles with this one, instead of fighting against them. I love the mudcloth pattern mixed with brass and the warm rust of the shower curtain. I would also go with a black paint for the vanity here, and either rattan or warm wood shelving over the toilet.
Which option do you like the best for this little spruce up?
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Light and Bright Bathroom
Teal Bathroom
Warm and Wallpaper Bathroom
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