Before painting: Our small downstairs bathroom with white wainscoting, a white cabinet above the toilet on the left, and a white sink with an oval mirror above it on the right. The wall above the white wainscoting is light gray. Photo by Mary Warner, August 12, 2023.
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Cheering Up the Bathroom

by Mary

Painting in the new house continues. 

A couple of weekends ago, we decided to erase the gray in the small first-floor bathroom, which is just a half-bath. You could call it a powder room if anyone used powder in there, but we don’t.

There’s white wainscoting in the bathroom and a white cabinet, which we quite liked. We wanted to cheer up the bathroom, so we picked a bright yellow.

Before painting: Our small downstairs bathroom with white wainscoting, a white cabinet above the toilet on the left, and a white sink with an oval mirror above it on the right. The wall above the white wainscoting is light gray. Photo by Mary Warner, August 12, 2023.
Before painting: Our small downstairs bathroom with white wainscoting, a white cabinet above the toilet on the left, and a white sink with an oval mirror above it on the right. The wall above the white wainscoting is light gray. Photo by Mary Warner, August 12, 2023.

Because the bathroom is so small, it didn’t take long to paint. However, that light gray, which looks like it would be easy to cover, took four coats – FOUR! – of yellow to fully cover.

 

After painting: The small bathroom with the white wainscoting and white cabinet above the toilet now has bright yellow paint on the wall above the wainscoting. Photo by Mary Warner, August 13, 2023.
After painting: The small bathroom with the white wainscoting and white cabinet above the toilet now has bright yellow paint on the wall above the wainscoting. Photo by Mary Warner, August 13, 2023.

The yellow not only brightens the space, it makes it feel more crisp and clean. When I told my brother we were painting this bathroom, he said, “The tomb-like one?” I’m happy to say it no longer feels like a tomb because the yellow psychologically enlarges it.

Once the paint dried, I added a few colored glass apples (red, yellow, and green) on the lower shelf of the cupboard. My mother-in-law gave me some white ceramic apples, which I added to the top of the cabinet, where they would stand out against the yellow wall.

 

White cupboard with two doors above and a shelf below. The shelf holds three glass apples in red, yellow, and green. On the top of the shelf are three identical white ceramic apples. The wall behind the shelf is bright yellow. Photo by Mary Warner, August 20, 2023.
White cupboard with two doors above and a shelf below. The shelf holds three glass apples in red, yellow, and green. On the top of the shelf are three identical white ceramic apples. The wall behind the shelf is bright yellow. Photo by Mary Warner, August 20, 2023.

I added a couple of pieces of art to complete the décor. One is a button art piece by Marlys Sebasky. 

 

Button art by Marlys Sebasky. A dark blue piece of fabric is mounted in an embroidery hoop. On the fabric, a variety of white buttons form a moon shape on the left side of the circle, and yellow and orange buttons complete the opposite side of the circle. Photo by Mary Warner, August 20, 2023.
Button art by Marlys Sebasky. A dark blue piece of fabric is mounted in an embroidery hoop. On the fabric, a variety of white buttons form a moon shape on the left side of the circle, and yellow and orange buttons complete the opposite side of the circle. Photo by Mary Warner, August 20, 2023.

The other piece of art is an appliqued and embroidered scene that I made to accompany my book, Greenville: Where Longing Meets Loss. It hangs behind the door, but can easily be seen by anyone in the bathroom if they have the door closed.

 

Yellow bathroom wall with white wainscoting below. On the left side of the photo, a green towel hangs above the sink. To the center-right of the wall hangs an appliqued and embroidered scene of a small house below a hill with a cemetery. The art piece is by Mary Warner. Photo by Mary Warner, August 20, 2023.
Yellow bathroom wall with white wainscoting below. On the left side of the photo, a green towel hangs above the sink. To the center-right of the wall hangs an appliqued and embroidered scene of a small house below a hill with a cemetery. The art piece is by Mary Warner. Photo by Mary Warner, August 20, 2023.

We’re happy with how this bathroom turned out. A simple change of color turned a dreary room into a cheery one.

Font Update

You may notice a little something different about my blog. My font plug-in was no longer being supported, so I had to install a new one. That necessitated updating my fonts. I really loved Playfair Display, which was my heading font previously. While my new font plug-in had Playfair Display, it made my blog title look a little wonky because it was in all-caps. I’m trying out Overlock SC for my title and headers and Trebuchet for my regular text. I may play around with this a bit before I settle on something permanently. Let me know what you think.