IMO teal walls will be too much for the space the tile is what I would let be the star. The print is too small for that wall and hung too high maybe have it out into a larger frame with a larger matte.The mirror should not be too big with that sink , as for the cabinets if they need paint I would do them and the walls the same color but lighter as the gray green in the print. I would not do sconces there really is no room for one on the right of the sink just do an over the mirror light and if you can a couple of pot lights all with daylight LED bulbs.

Please don't install a vessel sink in that wonderful bathroom. It doesn't work with the tile at all.

NO to the vessel sink! if you are keeping all the retro tile, a vessel sink will look extremely silly. besides, if you pull it out, you going to find the same tile to replace where the sink was? Do you think you can match up the grout coloring? it won't look right.

as will the teal walls. too much.

Doing your walls in teal would be something akin to this, but worse.

I would frame the picture in something a tad larger and hang it over the toilet. where its at now, it just appear too small. Instead of teal towels, I'd bring in the pink tones from the picture, or some of the celery green tones in the picture. I don't care for the teal w/what you have.

you could try a gray tone on the walls like they have here, with a white trim and vanity. this color would like nice w/your peach. (just make sure it's neutral gray)

change out your hardware to crystal knobs (like shown above w/the blue walls)

another retro bathroom w/different tones. But these sinks are perfect for the vanity (even though I know they are short). it suits the period.

Wow, I had the same thoughts. No to the vessel sink, the sconces and the teal wall color. A sold light gray in a matte finish would look great in this room and the wonderful print would fit better in the space over the toilet. The one thing you didn't mention is the toilet. Replace it if is isn't a water efficient model. Love your retro bathroom!

Wallpaper would be great in this bathroom, but since most people have an aversion to wallpaper just pick a non-yellow white for the walls and vanity.

Thank you everyone for responding and giving me your thoughts! I very much appreciate your time.

This bath is my only opportunity to be a little more daring like one might be with a powder room - thus the thought of the bolder color walls. I can see though through the photos from Beth H, that I might not end up liking it any more than this lovely-on-the-swatch and lovely sounding pale yellow. We painted quickly after buying this house two years ago and it's in the three baths and very insipid everywhere. It's interesting that several of you suggested gray. I've been contemplating grays in the master bath for a year and just can't seem to pull the trigger. Growing up in a cloudy region, despite the many pretty gray paint colors around, I can't stop myself from equating it with depressing skies and not enough sun.

We're holding off on the sink for now, but may try it later. The counter is low - 30 or 32" - and the sink is stained. I'm worried that if we tried to replace the sink with similar we'd end up breaking some of the tile and then end up having to gut everything - which is not in the budget. The vessel sink I'd chosen fits over this one with a little of the solid surrounding tile showing - it seemed to solve several issues.

We are going to do the sconces however. We have *just* enough room to line up with the end of the right side of the vanity if we do a 5" sconce with 3-4" before the edge of the mirror. We have can lighting elsewhere and discussed it here, but we want the design element of sconces.

Here's a photo of the wallpaper prior to our purchase. If I remember correctly the leaves had some sheen to them. palimpsest, I'm curious what wallpaper you'd do. I've seen several repositionable that I like.

Again, thanks.

Not a pro, but an avid mid-century modern fan. How lucky you are to have such a charming bathroom! Yes to all the above advice suggesting restraint. You're likely familiar with the blog, Retrorenovation, but it's my daily read for inspiration and has a wealth of design and decor advice to help maintain the integrity of this style.

The bathroom is in pretty good condition for its age.
I wouldn't do teal paint on the wall: too dark and does not go with the tile. The wall color would be better white: the yellowish color is also not complimentary to the tile. Reframe the print in a larger, matted frame, and hang it lower, just above the tile trim. Add a few teal accents to reference the print, but only a few.

Maybe you can post pictures of the sconces for feed back.

@houssaon, this is the style we're thinking about.

We want to work with 50s tile, but we are not trying to keep this as a 50s

time capsule.

If this bathroom is your one chance to be daring, pick a spectacular wallpaper. How about more fish?

As pal and Apple mentioned above, this is a great opportunity for some wallpaper. With some whimsy!

If you want to tone down the tile color pick a gray with a hint of peach/pink. Anything on the cool side will make the peach look brighter.

I really like the wallpaper idea!

Following

I might look at something like Cole and Son Prism

I don't have a good read on how peachy the brown tile is, but this paper by Thibaut has an aqua ground and seems to work with the tile

This ia called "Open Spaces"

It's an intense but very modern paper with the blurring watercolory image:

Thank you all again! I didn't get online much this weekend, but had fun looking into some wallpaper ideas. I love the Open Spaces print, but think it won't go over with my guys - my husband did call this bathroom the 'boys bathroom'. Not that I want to go super masculine, but I'm thinking the fish, or leaves, or abstract, or birds. We have a very slight bird 'theme' in the house as we back up to a 65 acre old growth forest of Tulip Poplars, White Oak, Magnolia, Elm, and Hickory (no Birch, so none of the Birch prints) with lots of bids.

Has anyone done repositionable wall paper or the peel and stick - especially in a bath?

The over the mirror light came down to reveal the last vestige of the old paper and it was a mirrored or silver paper, so I'm thinking from the 70's? Underneath the wall was the 'red' clay color that matches the tile.

If keeping the pink. How about metallic silver paint. The light will reflect.

Could also paint a light grey matte paint then paint silver metallic stripes over stencil over.

I would avoid too dark paint. It would be too much contrast in a small space. Visually makes the room smaller & cuts up the room visually accenting the half wall pink lines. It visually breaks up the walls, closes in the space, creates odd stop lines around perimeter.

imho, Avoid this look by avoiding too much dark contrast against tile.

Subtle color tones suggested.

The photo below, is very light grey

. It is my favorite.

It looks so much bigger & inviting.

Love your sconces! They look like they will be just right. So much better that the others.

I tried to get my friend to use the first fish posted from Osborned & Little, Derwent pattern, when she redid her bath. But it was too bold for her. I love it. It is a big statement. It comes in great colors.

Have you decided what to do about your sink? Some people on Houzz have been discussing the IKEA's kitchen cabinets are quite good. I was thinking if you carefully broke the grout line of the counter top and the wall, maybe you could remove the whole vanity and replace it with one of theirs. You mentioned that the counter is low, so the new one would be higher, which might be preferable. The width is another consideration. But this might be outside what you want to take on right now. Just a thought.

Well, the Cole and Son Fornasetti paper with the fish comes with a pale aqua background and brownish fish:

Quickly... my husband vetoed wallpaper, but here are two I was looking at yesterday (the bird one can be done in custom color and I would have gotten it to match more closely.) Waverly Lotus Lake in cream

and Take Flight from Wallpaperie on Etsy (the wind lines are a gray.)

Anyway, back to paint colors. Interesting with the silver artistsharonva. Retro Renovation had a silver stenciled bathroom wall that piqued my interest.

Just to be clear though, the tile is not Maime Eisenhower pink, it's peach/salmon/Band-aide colored with off white speckles. You come into the bathroom from medium toned pine paneling with a beige carpet.

Even with lots of pencil on the walls and first pass of mud, it's 'amazing' how much better the room looks without the old 80's Hollywood light and too small medicine cabinet.

I love Waverly Lotus Lake in cream. what are you doing about the sink? I originally thought a vessel sink would not work, but I've been seeing these square drop in ones on TV. I don't like the ones that look like a bowl sitting on top of the counter.

Houssaon, Great photos and petty bathrooms. Thanks for the idea of the IKEA cabinets. We had planned on using one of those in our old house when we were looking at renovation. Here I don't think it will possible and is more work than we want to do.

We're going to try again to remove the stains in the current sink and go from there. My original idea of the vessel was to use this one that completely covers the old one, but sits on top the band of plain tiles that surround the old sink:

I was thinking of this faucet that has similar lines to the tub fixtures:

The faucet looks tall here, but I think it is only a 5" faucet. If we keep the current sink I'll probably end up finding an inexpensive two handle faucet, 'cause although I prefer the one handle, I don't like them with the plate that covers the 3 holes.

The sink you are putting on top is similar enough to the semi integrated sort of 50s apron front sinks and 50s consoles in shape that I think it will work.

Look at Kohler Triton widespread faucets or the 4" center set faucets. Not cheap but a good classic faucet that's been around in various forms at Kohler probably since 1940. The latest permuations are very close to the 1960s ones we had in our house.