Bathroom Redo - How to Make a Pink Tub & Tile 'Disappear'

When you move into an older home and your decorating budget is being largely spent on your main living areas, dealing with a pink tile and tub in the bathroom can be quite a challenge. So until you can replace the tub and tile, here are some decorating tips that can help move the pink away from center stage.

Go Neutral: Choose neutral shades for the walls in your bathroom. If the pink tile has warm undertones to it use neutral brown tones, and if the pink tile has cool undertones to it use a neutral gray on the walls. By pairing the pink tile with these neutral colors, you will visually soften the contrast between the tile and the walls and allow it all to blend together.

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Play Up the Walls: Once you have your neutral walls balanced with the tile, choose your accessories to match your wall color but a few shades darker. By promoting the neutral tones you begin to pull attention away from the pink tile and tub.

Bathroom Redo - How to Make a Pink Tub & Tile 'Disappear'

Bold Accent: After you have all of your neutrals in place, choose a bold color to use as your accent or focal point in the room. A bold blue, a deep emerald or even a bright turquoise all command the eye's attention and further detract from the pink tile.

Accentuate the Undertone: As you consider your wall color understand that the pink tile will actually seem to change colors as you pair it with a new wall color. For example, if you pair baby pink with white it just looks pink, but when paired with a rich terracotta color it suddenly looks more salmon. By making this subtle shift in the appearance of the pink tile, you can now go on to decorate around an earth tone palette with terracotta and salmon rather than trying to decorate around bright pink. Try a few different color swatches on the wall to get a feel for how the light works with different colors in your space.

Decorating Neighbors: By using neighboring colors on the color wheel to pair with your pink tiles like orange, red or yellow, you make pink part of the background palette rather than the focus of the room. You can also incorporate pattern into the mix to liven up the space. So you could paint your walls yellow and add a geometric or floral shower curtain that contains reds, yellows and oranges to make a bright, cheery space. Then you can finish tying the look together with accessories and a bathmat.

Use a Barrier: Another more direct way that you can minimize the appearance of your pink tiles is to simply cover them up. By putting in a large bathroom rug and hanging a ceiling to floor shower curtain, you can simply make the pink tub and tile go away.

Create a Focal Point: You can also use the magician's trick of misdirection to make the pink seem to disappear by adding a dramatic accent piece in your bathroom. If you have an attention grabbing wall treatment, your eye will be so busy taking it all in that you will not have time to even notice the pink tile. A large mirror with interesting wall sconces or a huge window with a dramatic window treatment can pull the eye away from the tired, old pink tub and tile until you have the time and money to replace it.

Bathroom Redo - How to Make a Pink Tub & Tile 'Disappear'

Angela Glancy with American Artisan Art has developed an interest in expanding the use of wall art sculptures and wood wall sculptures.

Decorate Your Bathroom Mexican Style

Your Mexican style bathroom is bold and colorful. It is inviting and makes you feel happy. You can have your Mexican style bathroom with just a few decorator items and bright bathroom towels all the way to a whole new vanity and new saltillo tile floors. Lets start with the whole bathroom remodel and work our way up to bathroom accessories Mexican style.

The Mexican bathroom floor. Never carpet. Mexican saltillo tile or a glazed Mexican tile will give you the most authentic Mexican bathroom floor. Saltillo tile in a range of terracotta colors to manganese, a rich brown color. Saltillo tiles are made in a variety of shapes. What you see most are squares, six, twelve and sixteen inch. Then there are rounded patterned ones. You can do your bathroom floor overall with one tile or you can create a tile rug using several shapes or sizes of tile.

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How to create your Mexican tile rug. Use the twelve or sixteen inch squares on the entire bathroom floor except where you are placing the rug. Then make a border using smaller tiles. These can be broken pieces, colored tiles, patterned tiles or just the small saltillo tile. Then fill the center with the six-inch Mexican saltillo tiles set on a diagonal. For inspiration look at the designs on area rugs.

Decorate Your Bathroom Mexican Style

Mexican style bathroom walls. Paint or tile your walls in bright colors.
(Keep in mind you still have to put on make up and want to complement your pretty skin when choosing your colors). A great way to get that Mexican style is to paint a bold stripe in a chili pepper red or Tucson teal at chair rail height all the way around the room. Paint a lighter color on top and another bold color on the bottom part of the wall. You can also use bright colored Mexican tiles for your stripe or paint or stencil Mexican style designs in your stripe.

Your Mexican style bathroom vanity. Find an old dresser or buy a Mexican rustic chest or dresser cut a hole for the sink. Use a Mexican talavera pottery sink or buy a cobalt blue, sunflower yellow, aqua or red sink. Use bright solid or patterned Mexican tile on you vanity top. Or just waterproof the wood with a sealer. If you don't change your vanity, sink or countertop paint the cabinet base either solid or with a dry brush technique in a bold color.

Your Mexican style bathroom mirror can be framed in iron, shinny shaped tin or copper. A heavily carved frame can work and can be painted. There are also the shinny tin framed mirrors with the Mexican tiles inset.

Bathroom fixtures for a Mexican style bathroom. Replace shinny brass or silver faucets with dark rustic fixtures. Look at styles in antique bronze. If you change your sink fixtures don't forget the bathtub and shower for your overall Mexican bathroom style.

Mexican style bathroom lighting. Hang a wrought iron or rustic chandelier over each of your vanity sinks. Sconces on each side of the mirror work well too. If you use the chandelier, scrolly wrought iron sconces to hold pillar candles are totally Mexican style. Put a dimmer on the lights for those relaxing soaking baths.

Bathroom accessories Mexican designer style. Bright, bold colors, scrolly iron pieces, real Mexican serapes and Mexican pottery. Bright painted wood and Mexican woven or appliqué wall hangings will pull your Mexican style bathroom together.

Paint an old chair in a bright turquoise and place a stack of bold colored towels on the seat. Take a bright serape stripe fabric to make a valance over the shower curtain rod or hang a length of south of the border fabric from the ceiling to the floor to hide the open shower curtain. Use a solid or bright floral printed shower curtain that compliments.

Hang a piece of wall art that you love where you can see while soaking in the tub. Your Mexican wall art can be a framed print, a Mexican weaving or appliqué or scrolly wrought iron. Use Mexican pottery bathroom sink accessories. Use a small Mexican flower pot or mug to hold your toothbrushes and salsa, you have your bathroom Mexican style!.

Decorate Your Bathroom Mexican Style

Vickie Morrow is an interior designer and artist living and working in Scottsdale, Arizona. You can experience more of her decorating ideas, tips and how-tos at her web site: http://www.inoutdecor.com