Making a Rental a Home: Part 3

When we first moved to this house, the bathroom was definitely the bane of my existence.  It had horrible brown retro tile, natural-wood vanity and cabinet doors that clashed with said tile, a hideous brown and mauve floral border that periodically had to be sprayed to kill the mold that would collect on it, and an old, tired white paint job on the walls.  There was nothing redeeming about it.  However, when it looked like we were going to stay in this house after all, I got a little excited about the creative challenge of taking the aesthetic nightmare and transforming it something that wouldn't nauseate me every time I passed its open door. After all, I didn't get a degree in art for nothing.

After researching several blogs that focus on retro decorating, I started seeing the tile less as a curse and more as a potential retro gem.  I decided to create some paintings that would function on several levels: they would be captivating for the kids, help with teaching bathroom etiquette, and exhibit retro elements that would make the brown tile look like it was all part of my original scheme.  Here are the paintings I ended up doing:

After completing the paintings, I was ready to pick a wall color.  I went with a  light blue-green.  I then painted the wonderful frames my dad built for the monster paintings in a much darker blue-green.  Lastly, we painted all of the natural wood a bright white.  This last step made such a dramatic change in the bathroom that my friend, Megan, immediately asked if we had gotten brighter light bulbs. 

Much to my own shock, this is now my favorite room in the house as far as decor goes.  Shepherd also very much approves.  He loves talking about the monsters and what they are doing.  I think that this room has become my personal favorite, though, because it represents so well what I am trying to learn to do right now: take what is given and learn to be content.  Overall, I feel like we took some lemons (a 1950s brown-tiled bathroom) and made some pretty delicious lemonade!