Why I want to spend more time in my bathroom

For the past few months, we've been working with our friends at ChromaLab to spruce up some of the nooks and crannies in our small condo. First, they helped us refinish and refresh some small furniture pieces, which you can see on their blog here.

While I was stoked to get those projects done, I had something even bigger in mind as well. For years, I've been dissatisfied with our back hallway and bathroom. We spent so much time working on the main parts of the apartment (bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room) that those smaller spaces were left completely neglected. I had some ideas about what I wanted to do, but couldn't quite make any final decisions. When I found out that, in addition to furniture, our Chroma friends also do custom wall treatments, with our compatible style and color taste, it was like a match made in heaven. The first project we tackled was the hallway. I had been thinking about a deep purple for the hallway, to complement the yellow kitchen and green bedroom. I'd recently gotten into wallpaper and had a floral pattern that I liked in mind. So when Tony mentioned that he could paint a pattern directly onto the wall, I totally dug it.


Next we started in on the bathroom. When we first conceived of that project, I imagined painting the bathroom another color entirely. We discussed a few options, including a turquoise and a purple similar to the one in the hallway, with a raindrop motif that Tony uses in a lot of his artwork. But for those of you who have seen our place, every room is painted a different color. I was worried that it would look overdone, but I still wanted that combination of graphic and modern, but whimsical at the same time. I was especially inspired by this photo of Cynthia Rowley's bathroom below, which was recently featured in Elle Decor.


So Tony went back to the drawing board and brought us a few more neutral samples to look at. In the end, we decided to stick with a neutral white backdrop for the bathroom, but to add a little interest, Tony suggested a burlap, waffle-like texture underneath the paint. And to give it that whimsy and use the colors I oh so love, we went with a black and dark gray raindrop motif, intermixed with various other colors.


We were so happy with the idea and our previous experiences with Tony and Alicia, that, after a couple of color and design consultations, we went away on vacation knowing that we were leaving our bathroom in capable hands. Here's a snap of how it turned out.


Next up for the bathroom: re-doing the floors.