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dlm217

Bathroom Help

16 years ago

Hi, I am new here. I just bought my first house in October. It was built in 1936 and needs a lot of updating. We do not have much money right now to use so we have done some basics. The bathroom is in in overall good condition. It is light pink tiles, with a beige tiled floor, tan tub, tan toilet and pink vanity with a tan sink (sink really needs to be replaced but will have to wait until after the new year). I really hate the vanity cabinet but not sure what to get in it's place. I can not afford to remodel the bathroom. The wall above the tiles is a dingy clay like color. I want to paint that and eventually change the vanity, sink and probably mirror to update it for now. I don't have a picture to put up right now. Any ideas on a color to paint the walls? The shower has glass sliding doors with mermaids on them. I would like to get rid of them but not sure what to do once removed about the holes that would be left.

Comments (15)

  • 16 years ago

    How's the lighting in the room? My first thought is to bring in a warm chocolate brown.

  • 16 years ago

    Summing it up:
    light pink tiles
    beige tiled floor
    tan tub,
    tan toilet
    pink vanity
    tan sink
    I really hate the vanity cabinet
    wall above the tiles is a dingy clay like color
    The shower has glass sliding doors with mermaids on them. I would like to get rid of them but not sure what to do once removed about the holes that would be left.

    Oh you poor thing, I feel your pain. I've rented places like that. If this were my house I would be tempted to paint the walls white and paint the vanity cabinet white. Not that this is the absolute best color for the room, but it is far better than the clay color.

    If you decide to remove the shower doors, it is not hard to fill the holes with Bondo. I'm wondering, though, whether it would be possible just to remove the mermaids and leave the doors alone?

  • 16 years ago

    Oh, I can feel your pain!

    We had swans on our glass shower doors.
    And we had hot pink with gold flecks, 4" tiles in the tub/shower combo.

    My son, eighth grade, was home from school with the last remnants of chicken pox.

    I was again scrubbing the tub/shower combo trying to keep the germs down and I was on my hands and knees scrubbing out the track of the glass sliding doors...Yucky!

    Son came in the bathroom and asked if I really liked the shower/tub doors.
    Um...NO!

    He had already checked it out while standing behind me and told me how easy it would be to remove the doors and track.

    He got a phillips screw driver, a utility knife with a sharp blade and a 2" metal putty knife.

    He lifted out each door and together we carried each one outside and leaned them against the house.

    We cut through the caulking around the metal frame of the glass doors with the utility knife and used the putty knife to break the caulk seal.

    Then he unscrewed the screws that held in the frame of the doors.

    All that was left was for me to use the putty knife to get off all that old caulk.
    But before that, the removal of the frame and doors took about 45 minutes, max.

    I filled the holes from the frame screws with...don't laugh......

    a little Painters' Caulk (a paintable caulk that cures a lot of ills. *grin*) in a Dixie cup with a dab of red craft paint.
    The white painter's caulk turned the drop of red paint into the perfect pink...matched the tiles! LOL

    I then bought a shower curtain and a spring-loaded shower rod and put them up myself.

    What a huge difference!
    The shower curtain freshened the look of the bathroom and it also hid the pink/gold speckled tile...win-win!

    OR: take out the shower doors, outside where there is ventilation.
    Buy some Krylon Frosted Glass Spray Paint.
    Follow instructions and you can probably hide those mermaids with the frosted paint.

  • 16 years ago

    Any color that you use that is Not in the pinky -beige family somewhere is only going to emphasize the pink tile.

    Even if it is a pale tint you should stick with a neutralized pink or beige to lessen the tiles pinkness.

    I think you would do better off embracing it rather than trying to camouflage it somehow.

  • 16 years ago

    Hopefully the mermaids can be scraped off the glass as someone above recommended. As for the walls, paint them a nice creamy white, then use black accents. It IS possible to paint tile, although I recommend asking at the paint store for the proper paint to do that. I personally painted a vanity that was covered in that 80's style laminate which was supposed to mimic marble. I did the sides and doors in a low-gloss black rustoleum, and it toned down the peachy yellow in my entire bathroom.

    I personally think that pink, black and white could make an elegant bathroom decor, especially if you then accented in soft shades of pink and white with black trim. I'm thinking nice, fluffy white towels with a wide pink border, trimmed with a bit of black ribbon hung on the towel rack.

  • 16 years ago

    I'm with amity on removing the shower door. Bravo to her young son for his help! I'm also with palimpsest in embracing what you have instead of trying to camouflage it. And really pink and brown/beige is a great combo.
    Here are some shower curtains and one fabric I found incase you can sew and like toile. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a pretty pink and brown fabric if you don't care for what's ready made.
    {{!gwi}}
    OOPS! Just noticed in my prettying up the choices I covered up the shell curtains price and that it was found at Wal Mart for I think around fifteen dollars.

  • 16 years ago

    I'd go Ultra Pure White from Behr. You've already got a lot of color going on, and the white will just freshen everything up. My 1950 house has pale yellow tile walls with an ugly clay tile trim. The PO had tried, rather unsuccessfully, to match the wall paint to the tile, but it ended up looking the color of my 90 year old 2-pack a day smoking Aunt Mardela's teeth. Which cast a sallow hue on my face every morning, rendering makeup application tricky at best. Painting the walls pure white made a HUGE difference, and I don't even hate the ugly clay tile as much as I did.

    I love the bottom 2 shower curtains justgotabme posted.

  • 16 years ago

    Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I might try taking the doors off and filling the holes. I found a light pink curtain at Target by Shabby Chic that is cute. I am going to try to paint the wall portion some type of white and put up the pink curtin. They also had a toile shower curtain in white with light pink that I want to try. For now the sink will have to stay. But after the new year I was wondering if it would look bad to get a new sink and toilet in white and not sure on what color for the vanity cabinet for the sink. I will try to take a picture later and put it up. Oh, would it look bad to have a white toilet and sink and tan tub if I put up a shower curtain?

    Thanks again for the help.

  • 16 years ago

    White everything else and a tan tub would be fine imo. The white goes with everything. I'd paint the vanity white if you can't afford to replace it.

    Not sure what kind of feeling you want for the room, but embrace the pink. There is a lot you can do. Some combos that work well with pink

    Brown & pink
    Gray & pink (soft or darker) - using this you can go more modern in style too if you want.
    White & Pink
    Black & Pink
    Green & Pink - more girly or romantic feel (my ex MIL had a very grown up romantic pink/green bath)
    yellow & pink - I often see this for girls rooms, but it is cheery.

  • 16 years ago

    I figured you wouldn't really see the tub anyway with the shower curtain. Lighting in there is bad. There is no ceiling fixture. It is only 4 big bulbs over the mirror and that is in a pushed back portion of the bathroom so by the toilet and shower it is a little darker. I am going to see about getting a ceiling fixture put in to brighten up. There also isn't a light fixture in the living room. There is no light we have lamps for now.

  • 16 years ago

    How bad of shape is the sink in?

  • 16 years ago

    I love the toile idea, or a shabby chic. Use what you have and it will be adorable. The colors seem like they really could be easy to coordinate.

    You may be able to paint your cabinet white, chocolate or black, perhaps with a glaze, lots of people in the kitchen forum have done this. I had my oak kitchen painted creamy white recently, and plan to paint the cabinet in my powder room after a few other projects. If you do paint it, use Benjamin Moore Satin oil based Impervo paint. My cabinets are holding up perfectly, it's scrubbable - I even got black Sharpie off the paint. The paint forum has detailed instructions, it would be a pretty easy project for a small vanity.

  • 16 years ago

    Wow that's impressive gmp3 to have gotten Sharpie off a painted surface! Just curious, what did you use to get it off?

  • 16 years ago

    I used a few choice words, then dish soap and the scotch bright side (I think thats what the scratchy side is called)of a sponge very very lightly. I worked at it a bit but I was amazed! The satin impervo is awesome!

  • 16 years ago

    You know you need to live with it all for awhile...so take a look at the Save the Pink Bathroom site I've linked below. EMBRACE THE PINK! ;^) Site has lots of photos...surely you'll find some ideas there.

    Here is a link that might be useful: savethepinkbathrooms