Color: Toning Down Terra Cotta Tile

When we moved this time, I asked my husband to find me a house that was "move in ready," and he did a pretty good job. We were able to put our furniture in the house and live in it for about two months before the flat tan paint started looking like a horde of angry monkeys with dirty fingers was rampaging through the house while we slept. In truth, I might have just kept doing touch ups until I ran out of paint, except for the fact that the terra cotta colored tile in the bathroom was starting to grate on my nerves. I like terra cotta, but there is a lot of it in that room, and the tan paint was really showing off just how orange the tile was. So I looked online for inspiration for toning it down and found these:

I wound up painting our bathroom a similar shade of grayish green called Garden Shed by Martha Stewart. It is amazing how the green brings out the red and darker shades in the tile so that it is not glaringly orange. Now I just have to find myself some more cottage-garden accessories, and my bathroom will be warm and cozy like the ones in the inspiration photos.

Soothing in green

before in the flat tan

before

after