Mint Green Tile Is Like a Prom Night Zit

The new lake house has 2 very outdated bathrooms that appear to be from the 60s.

Or maybe some other bygone era where people had really bad taste in tile and bathrooms in general.

Since we do not own this home, I am not willing to invest too much time or money into anything that I can't take with me when I'm done.

Sometimes the only option with a rental is working with what you have and trying to cover up that 

Prom Night zit the best you can.

And sometimes you have to cover up a whole face full of zits.

Oh...

did I fail to mention that we also started with mint green and pink 

SPONGE PAINTED WALLS?!

Yes, someone actually actually made a conscious decision to do that to this bathroom.

Then I made a semi-conscious decision to make it look like this:

 

I say 'semi-conscious' because I had no pre-conceived ideas about what to do with this bathroom initially.

Also I was probably drunk when I told myself I could work around mint green tile.

Obviously painting was necessary so I went with a light beige to brighten things up a bit and keep it neutral.

Paint is my best friend and it should be yours, too.

It's the least expensive and easiest way to make chicken poop into chicken salad.

When I came across the rust color ombre shower curtain (Nate Berkus for Target) and a navy, white and sisal blended wool rug (also at Target in the clearance section) I finally knew where I wanted to go with this whole thing.

I added some natural textures with baskets and a bamboo soap dispenser.

(The towel holder is a wine rack I picked up at a garage sale for $2.00.)

What really makes everything work together, though, is the artwork above the toilet.

 

These watercolor moth prints are by Australian artist, Allyson Reynolds and I first saw them here.

I knew the colors would tie all the new bathroom colors together but I also needed to do this very cheaply.

So, I used my trusty printer and some plain white paper and printed out some photos straight off the good 'ol world wide web. 

Then I framed them in some black Ribba frames from Ikea ($10 for two) and there you have it...

Better, right?

You can see all of the 'after' photos of our new lake house update here.

Try not to judge me for the massive smattering of Ikea throughout - work had to be done quickly and on a mega tight budget to make it ready for guests.

I'll post some more 'befores' on the blog later but it's our busy rental season and I'm behind on pretty much everything in my life right now so it'll have to wait.

You can check out this post, too, for a little sneak peek if you feel so inclined.

In the meantime I'd love to hear from you all about how you've worked with/around/in spite of an outdated bathroom tile color?

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney