Weekend Makeover

I painted my bathroom last weekend. Black. The bathroom was remodeled about 10 years ago and, as conventional wisdom goes for a room that is barely 4 foot square, I painted it cream and white. I really liked it; vintage inspired fixtures coordinated perfectly with the subtle cream color on the wainscoting and the new oak floor. The artwork was simple, pages from an old book, framed in black. The room always looked nice.

However, as time went on the painted white walls started to show signs of wear. I tried to perk it up with different artwork, but all of a sudden the classic room began to look cheap. Bright colored, children’s art looked silly against the white walls, like a classic black dress with a gigantic crepe-paper flower stuck at the hip with a safety-pin. It began to bother me, and, as my daughter and I use it every day, it’s confused style was a daily reminder that I no longer liked the room.

So, I decided to paint. I knew that I wanted to keep the artwork and the cream-colored wainscoting, all I needed was color on the walls. Because the bathroom is at the top of the stairs I couldn’t paint it red; the risers on the stairs were already red, and I knew it would appear very odd to have the stairs and bathroom the same color. (For more about the red stairs click on the link) http://wendyandthebluegiraffe.blogspot.com/2010/02/would-you-tell-me-please-said-alice.html Blue didn’t feel right, and my kitchen was already green, so I started to think about black. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea, plus if I used chalkboard paint (my favorite paint) then we could also write messages to each other or, rather strangely, doodle while on the toilet (that thought just occurred to me…..I wouldn’t recommend doodling while on the toilet).

It took me the whole weekend (black not being the easiest color to work with) but in the end it was far more than I had hoped. Despite what you would assume, the room doesn’t look smaller at all. The subdued, black color is the perfect background for my daughter’s pictures. A geranium and a few empty, wooden frames gives a classic feel to a room that now has a slightly beautiful sense of whimsy.