Bathroom colours advice needed

2 years ago

last modified: 2 years ago

Sorry, didn't realise I had put this on repeatedly. (I thought the other versions failed.) I don't want to delete it though as there is a brilliant reply that might help other people.

Please save our marriage. He is tasteful but risk-averse with colours while I love bright, bold greens and happily admit I would make a terrible designer. Our bathroom renovation project has stalled as a result, so any colour suggestions will be gratefully accepted.

We have bathroom tiles we love and have already used them in the upstairs bathroom. (First set of pics is before and after.) They are greys with a touch of brown and a rainforest theme so we introduced green using F&B Breakfast Room Green (aka Good Taste Green - acceptable but bland) and James White. The flooring is Karndean Palio Clic Arezzo, which is a browny-grey wood look.

We are now thinking about the downstairs bathroom (pics below), which is much smaller but still has a shower. It is part of an extension so while the room is rectangular, with a corner shower off to your left as you enter and a toilet and sink straight ahead of you, the ceiling is a bit unusual: mostly flat but above the loo it funnels upwards to a skylight. That also means the colours change a lot depending on what part of the bathroom you are looking at.

The toilet, sink, shower, tray and shower enclosure will be changed. The mirror will stay and possibly the radiator. The pictures on the wall will stay if they look right and move elsewhere if they don't. We have flooring and shower tiles left over from upstairs so will reuse those but I don't want to replicate the upstairs bathroom's colour scheme as it is actually a bit dull: one of those compromise designs, where neither of us loves our new bathroom 100% but at least neither of us hates it.

The downstairs bathroom is currently a soft grey and, while it doesn't look awful, I am not so keen on grey generally; I love my rainforest tiles but for the birds and plants, not the tasteful shades of grey and brown. To add in grey shower tiles and tray where they are currently white would make the room seriously grey, and I know my husband wants a grey shower tray. I would go for striking green walls but my husband hates those and wants more muted, khaki-style greens. (Bleuugh.)

I love the idea of walking into a bathroom that is an interesting colour (feeling cocooned in it) but at the same time, I don't want it to feel very dark or very overwhelming. Well, I would be happy with that but he would hate it. (An exception would be F&B Stiffkey Blue - I reckon he might go for that. Bit of an odd combo though?)

A feature wall could be a possibility but the unusual ceiling makes the choice of wall a bit more limited. I know I can go for neutrals and dress it up with bath mats and accessories but I want a colourful bathroom that looks nice even when its clothes are in the laundry. Besides, bathroom mats look tatty after about a week in my house because nobody else understands that it is not a great idea to casually let bleach drip onto them: it would cost us a fortune to keep it looking great if the wow factor depends on its mats.

I don't have the vision to imagine other colours with the tiles and, in my head, a forest is green and brown. (Sorry, brown bathrooms don't do it for me.) I'm sure the tiles would look great against, say, a darker blue, but wouldn't the tile pattern look out of place against it? Grey and red do look nice but red can quickly be overwhelming and, again, wouldn't the tile theme look a bit odd against those colours?

Plan B is to replicate the upstairs colour scheme, as at least we can agree on it, even if neither of us would have made those colours our first choice, but that feels like a lost opportunity. Plan C is to divorce and each remarry someone with the same aesthetic preferences. Seems a bit drastic.

Thanks for suggestions on how to transform the space above using the grey rainforest shower tiles and same layout.

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