That’s what I think when I look back on the main bathroom of our first house. 
Don’t let me fool you now. This is “after”. Yeah, I know your eyes just got a tad wider and your jaw fell a tad closer to the floor.
It’s bad. I know it. Brown and orange with wood trim????!!! Is it fitting or ironic or did I just take it too far? Either way, maybe if I let you in on my thought process you’ll understand a tad more and renege on your sudden desire to turn me into the interior design police.
Once upon a time I went on a Parade of Homes. You know, those shows where you go around from gorgeous home to gorgeous home, soaking in all the pretty and grand and letting your inspiration mug overflow with ideas for your dream home. And on that little tour de homes, I laid foot in a beautiful powder room that the designer(s) of that particular home painted a deep dark brown and it looked incredible. I hadn’t seen a room that dark before and so it was not only mesmerizing but someday I had to copy.
Enter our bathroom. Not the bathroom that was the best slate for my dark bathroom must-have but what did I know? Nothing, obviously. When we moved into our first home, that bathroom was an awful shade of peach and had to go. (Ha…it’s funny thinking back on how awful I thought the peach was, because it was, but how I covered it with an equally awful color…fool me once, fool myself twice…) So Cabin Plank (Valspar) went up on the walls. Wish as I did to want to paint all of the trim and vanity white, I didn’t. All of the trim in the entire house was solid wood and stained the same as that in the bathroom. And it wasn’t cheap wood trim either. So, painting it, when we knew that the house wasn’t our forever home, we ruled out because we thought we’d get more money for our investment with the wood the way it was vs. painting over it. (We ended up making bank off that house so I don’t know in the long run if it would’ve been better or worse to paint but c’est la vie.)
To add a tad bit o’ color, I grabbed some dollar store daises and planted them in some dollar store vases and picked up some matching orange hand towels from Walmart. The cabinet over the toilet we purchased at Target and the white shower curtain was a wedding registry gift (Target). Those two white things were my sole two attempts to put some white in the room and were probably my unconscious trade for not painting the trim white. I added some white frames that I filled with sepia-filtered pictures of our honeymoon (which just added more brown…dumb idea.) The gold fixtures were already there along with the creamy white tile floor. The toilet was a bisque color as was the shower/bath combo. The room didn’t exactly scream “A Parade of Homes home was my inspiration!!” But, it was an ultra-cheap transition from where it began, ringing in at around $35.
If I could go back and if I had to keep the wood unpainted, I think I’d go with a creamy white on the walls, add some bold fabric in the form of a roman shade over the window, swap out the over-the-toilet cabinet with a couple of large frames stacked on top of each other, and nix the flowers and orange anything. Maybe this no good, very bad, two minute, photo-shopping job will help visualize it:
[If you squint, it might help it to look a little better…or better yet, chug a large glass of vino.]
So, there you have it. One of the worst decorating decisions I’ve made. What about yours? Spill it. :)
I painted our master bedroom at our last house a light gray. Light gray sounds quite lovely, but I swear to you, IT WAS NOT. I was in a rush and hastily chose the color after only a few minutes of consideration. It was gross, nasty, hospital gray, and my husband still won't let me live it down.
ReplyDeleteThe other big decorating mistakes I have made involve decorating our house with items that I felt obligated to hang up or use because they were gifts... It's the thought that counts, but I cringe when I look at it... :)
Haha! So funny because I just read some blog post somewhere about choosing the "perfect gray" and at first I was all like "how can you choose a wrong gray?" but now I know maybe you can?
DeleteAnd about using things you feel obligated to use...I CAN TOTALLY RELATE! I am so, so, so happy you know what that's like! There are a few things in our house that fall into that category and I'll never tell what they are lest their givers find out BUT, it's a tough thing.
I don't know if it was the worst, because I didn't hate the color, but it just didn't work. I am of the older generation, and we like wood trim. I like both painted and white trim actually, as I've had both. Anyway, all of the trim is stained in our house and my hubby doesn't want it painted so it's about the art of compromise. I let him pick out the office/craft room color and he picked brown. I like brown so that was fine. However, all of our furniture in there is oak. More brown. It felt like a dark hole. So..................after 3.5 years of hating the feeling of that room, I kept the brown on the top 1/3 of the wall, painted the bottom 2/3 and off white (my preference over white) and then had the hubby put moulding around the room where the two shades meet in a different shade of off white. The furniture now pops against the wall instead of blending. Then my friend and I (ok, mostly her) made roman shades out of a fun and colorful fabric. I had the hubby build me a bench in front of the window which is flanked by two bookcases. I am still in the midst (months later) of attempting to make a seat cushion, but I did make colorful pillow covers over old throw pillows I had. I also painted poster board a turquoise blue and put that in the backs of the book cases and on the third, used maps (my fav). It looks so much better. My step-daughter who doesn't always notice this type of thing even complimented the room when she came to visit. :)
ReplyDeleteLisa! You are such a good wife! They always say it's always about compromise and it's true! Your idea of painting the bottom 2/3 of the walls is genius! Filing that one away for future compromising situation! And that room sounds wonderful!!!
DeleteThanx you are sweet, but truth be told most of the house is the way I want it within reason (there's that compromise again). I do try to keep him in mind, because after all, last I checked, his name is also on that mortgage! He has to feel comfortable, too or at least should, lol!
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