Color: Aqua Bathroom Update

What do you do when you inherit colored/dated bathroom fixtures? Well, the expensive answer is to rip them all out and replace them. In this case, we had two shades of aqua on the tub and sink and a gray blue toilet. The room looked like contractor's leftovers and featured a cheap plastic sink faucet. Yay! The counter top contained yet another shade of blue and the wallpaper even more. The elephant in the room was a giant one piece tub/shower made of cast iron and porcelain. Getting it out would have required serious demolition to the side of the house. So instead of fighting it, I decided to work with it and couldn't have been happier with the results. I painted the walls the same color as the tub and surround, which made it disappear into the background and made the room feel larger. The sink and toilet and faucet were replaced with crisp white, and white bead board and chair rail in the bath area broke up the blue. Counter and back splash were replaced with warm neutrals to balance the space and play nice with the oak cabinets. Updated oil rubbed bronze pulls also make the oak feel less dated. I never worry about matching hardware in a room since mixed metals give a room a sense of history and interest as long as they look good together. Buying a factory laminated counter-top from the kitchen department, cutting it down, and using inexpensive floor tiles for the back splash made for an affordable project. Painting over the wallpaper instead of taking it down saved time and money and headache. If it's glued on seven ways to Sunday, just leave it! A see through shower curtain is great for staging or decorating as it will gain you about 3 feet of real estate in most bathrooms.

Pro tip: close the dang toilet before you take photos! lol

Before

After