I have a new addition to the home tour for you today: my daughter’s bathroom. It’s not completely done yet, but I’ll go ahead and share the progress that I’ve made and 2 affordable art ideas.
When we moved into the house, the bathroom was painted a brownish-green color that just wasn’t working for me. Over years of renting, I have developed a strong aversion to brown/tan/beige (I know it can look really amazing if done well, so don’t be offended if your house is brown) and I just couldn’t have it in my home anymore. My solution to this was to go color crazy. You will see more pictures of this as I continue our home tour, but every room I painted got color on the walls. And most of them have since been repainted. Here is exhibit A, I call it “Green Gone Wrong”.
I actually still really like the color, but it was too overwhelming in this small bathroom (and the 1/2 bath downstairs that also received this color) and at night it turned neon. Shudder. It really hurt to paint over this because I painted both bathrooms while I was 8 1/2 months pregnant and nesting. Do you know how hard it is to paint behind 2 toilets when you’re 8 1/2 months pregnant? Stop and imagine that for a second. Let’s just say I was determined.
Here is how it looks today:
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The paint color is Sherwin Williams Amazing Grey and it now covers most of my house. It’s a beautiful, warm “greige” color that goes back and forth between tan and grey depending on the lighting. I’ve found that grey can be a really hard color to nail. After about 6 test pots of paint I finally called someone in to help me because the grey paint turned blue or purple on the wall and I couldn’t figure out how to compensate for that. Turns out you need to have brown undertones to help keep that from happening.
The shower curtain I made myself, which wasn’t too terribly hard. I frequently have an idea in my head of exactly what I want for a space but can’t find it already made (or at least not in my price range) and so I make it my self. The ikat fabric is from Hobby Lobby. I just love Water Hyacinth baskets, I think they add such fun texture in a room. This one is from Target (and it’s on sale today!). The fun Vogue art is from eBay!
I honestly can’t even remember where I got this idea now, I’m not usually an eBay shopper. I was reading a fashion book or a magazine that had some vintage magazine covers that were so beautiful, and I knew I wanted to do something with fashion in my daughter’s bathroom. So I went on eBay and did a search for ‘Vogue’ and there were a lot of results, most of them really affordable. Note: this one is a poster print, not an original cover. I ended up paying $25 for this one with shipping several months ago. When I was searching through the results I just saved all the covers that had blue in them (I wanted to tie in the blue from the shower curtain) and then picked my favorite. This cover is from Vogue May 1935. I popped it in an Ikea frame (the RIBBA is my favorite) and voila! Unique art that didn’t break the bank.
And here is the opposite wall. I hated the white plastic towel bar that was on this wall, so I removed it and got cute hooks from Home Depot. Now there’s room for more towels, they dry faster, and it’s looks better. Win, win, win. The towels are from JC Penney, their Royal Velvet collection. Really lightweight, incredibly soft, and they frequently have great sales. Sticking with the fashion theme, the art is from Ikea.
Originally these art prints were black and white and I loved them that way. Until I put them up on a grey wall. They just didn’t pop enough. Now I can’t actually take credit for what I did next. My good friend was at my house and I told her the situation and she said “Why don’t you just paint them?” At first I was thinking, “Are you kidding? I’ll ruin them!” But she is very convincing and soon had me getting out paint brushes and paint. I didn’t own any watercolors at the time, so I got out some acrylics and mixed them with water. What happened next felt a little bit like pure luck, because I had never painted with watercolors before and had no idea how to apply it. I don’t say that to try to scare you away from trying something like this, it’s really pretty simple. But here are my top 2 tips: Practice on scrap paper first (I did not do this…) and empty your brush of most of the paint before painting (I learned this the hard way…). You will have more control of where the paint goes and have less streaking. Unfortunately I don’t have any in process photos for you, I did this before I started blogging and thinking about documenting all the projects I’m working on. Also, Ikea doesn’t have these in stock anymore, but they do have some fashion prints already in color, the KORT art card and the BILD poster (this one was in my cart, but I decided the colors weren’t quite right, love it though). They also have the BYARUM picture in black and white.
So, that’s what it looks like today. I’d like to find a rug to cover the tan linoleum, get a few more accessories for the counter, and maybe change out the shower curtain. I’ve had it for about 2 years now, and I’m kind of ready for something new. There are a lot of other things I would change in this room if this was a long term location for us. But because it’s not and the house is so new, I have a hard time justifying spending money to change out perfectly good cabinets/counter tops/flooring. This is the story in most of the rooms in our house. We love our home, but the finishes are just not what I would choose if I were starting from scratch. So I’m doing my best to personalize the space and make if feel like us without taking a sledge hammer to anything (believe me, it’s crossed my mind many times, remember how much I dislike tan?).
Now you’ve met one of my bathrooms and I’ve shared 2 simple DIY-ish art projects. What are you working on? Have any DIY art in your home? I’d love to see it!
