Bathroom Paint Colors

I stripped the paint off the old medicine cabinet yesterday and now I’m thinking I might go a head and paint it while it’s all taken apart. It could be months before I paint the rest of the bathroom and I don’t want to loose any of the screws or catches.

With that in mind I swung by Sherwin Williams yesterday and started to look at paint chips. Oy! There are just so many choices to chose from. I need to think of colors for two rooms. There is the little mud room that sits between the kitchen and the bathroom, and then the bathroom itself. The mud room will be all beadboard walls and ceiling and then some window and door trim. The bathroom will be a lot of tile with plaster above and then some wood trim and cabinets.

There is only an opening with no door that separates the kitchen from the mud room. When you’re in the kitchen you will be able to see the painted wood in the mud room at all times so I want the colors in the kitchen and the colors in the mudroom to compliment each other. I don’t want any garish contrast between the two rooms. I think there should also be a similar transition between the mud room and the bathroom. Because of the design of the house these three rooms make up their own separate space from the rest of the house.

So the kitchen has Majolica Green walls and Honied White wainscoting, trim, and cabinets. My first thought is that I wanted to avoid green in the mud room & bathroom because I just painted the house green and I don’t want it to appear I have some sort of green fetish although I may secretly harbor one. Only years of intense psychoanalysis will tell me whether I do or not. Although, the only other room in the house I’ve painted is the upstairs bathroom and that was painted blue, so maybe I only have a mild green fetish.

All of the tile work in the bathroom will be white, so I need some color in there. The only window is a stained glass window and I won’t be doing any window treatment on it. That leaves the walls above the tile, and the trim around the door, window, small cabinets, and medicine cabinet. Both the mud room and bathroom are relatively small spaces and can easily be over-powered by too much color. Also, I don’t want them to seem dark and cavernous so I want light colors.

I’m leaning towards a neutral color for the plaster walls in the bathroom. Without giving it too much thought I came up with Crisp Linen or Muslin. These are SW colors. The bead board in the mudroom I could do in the same Honied White I did all the woodwork in the kitchen. This would visually tie these to rooms together. I could then do both the trim in the mudroom and the trim in the bathroom in the same color. At first I was leaning towards something from the blue pallet. I know, I already painted to upstairs bathroom blue. Maybe I’m afraid of color. After I get the green fetish thing worked out I’ll start to work on my fear of colors.

I have a paint chip card with Topsail and Tradewind on it. These are nice shades but after I looked at them for a while they start to look like something that should be on the set of Miami Vice. Maybe not, I don’t know, it’s a first look. The other color I really like is Queen Anne’s Lace. It is a very pale green and I like it for a few reasons. First it’s a shade of green and we all know about my well documented green fetish. Second, I really like the name – Queen Anne’s Lace. It has a very pleasant sound to it, doesn't it. Also, I do live in a Queen Anne Victorian home. Third, there is the line from a great Bob Dylan song that goes"

Purple clover, Queen Anne lace, 
Crimson hair across your face, 
You could make me cry if you don't know. 
Can't remember what I was thinkin' of. 
You might be spoilin' me too much, love, 
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

That alone is enough to make me want to paint my whole house in Queen Anne’s Lace, but when you consider that the song, You're gonna make me lonesome when you go, is on what may be one of the best musical releases of all time I can’t see that I have any choice. I mean, it’s Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks! This is a top five deserted island music pick for me! It has such masterpieces as Tangled Up In Blue and Shelter From The Storm. How can I not go with Queen Anne’s Lace. I think the logic is rock solid on this one people.

Of course, I could also see if there is a Purple Clover offered by Sherwin Williams. Quick! To the paint store!