One of the reasons I had to laugh when my nephew said yesterday that he liked Black & White, was because the day before, I had been decorating my Half Bath with that same theme.
I've always wanted to have a room that was predominantly B&W, but the opportunity never presented itself in my former home.
I decided that now, in this house, it was time for the Half Bath to get some strong treatment.
It's my opinion that in small spaces (foyers, small hallways, etc.), you can get really bold with a color, a design, or a theme.
You can be bold in small spaces because visually, you won't feel as overwhelmed as you might if you did the same treatment in a large room. And for rooms that you pass through quickly, the "Ai-Yi-Yi-What're-You-Tryin'-To-Do-To-Me?" factor is severely limited as well.
(Personally, I'm willing to get overwhelmed by Strong Statements in Large Spaces, but I am considerate of my guests. Yeah, that's it.)
Because of the size of this wall, it seemed the perfect place for lots of images. So I cut up my copy of Sock Monkeys: 200 out of 1,863 (link in left-hand column), and hung the portraits with teacher's tack.
Tips for hanging things on walls:
- Use a level to draw your lines. You may want to forgo using a tool; don't. Eyeballing straight lines is almost impossible.
- Draw lines with a colored pencil that's just a step or two deeper than your wall color and use a light touch-- you're not carving your name in marble, after all.
- Use a white eraser (Staedler makes one) to erase your lines. Erasers at the ends of most pencils will leave a reddish smudge behind, which just makes Mummy cross!
Admittedly, I was a bit resistant at first to cutting up a perfectly good book, but overcame that in fairly short order. If you have books whose images you never see because the book is on a shelf somewhere, take them down and cut them up.
(If the book is valuable, obviously, don't. We want to see you on The Antiques Roadshow someday, clutching your chest and squeaking out a high number. Honest, we do.)
A good rule of thumb for displaying book pages or any other treasure is: Will this bring me more joy hidden away, or out on display? (Ooh, that rhymed!)
I didn't want to make copies of the images because:
- Wouldn't be as good as a quality as the actual pages
- An expense I didn't need to incur
- Not really fair to the guys who made the book
Didn't buy frames for these either, because, again: a cost I didn't need to incur, plus: this isn't a bathroom that will have shower steam causing the pictures to peel off.
If you haven't heard me say it before, I'll say it again: I like letters... I like numbers... I like toys & dolls... I like the 1950s... I like circles... I like rectangles...
... and it's these things that are the 'connective tissue' between this room and the other rooms in the house.
If you're going to do something 'a little bit different' in one of your rooms, try to have some kind of connection to the rest of the house, whether it's a color that gets repeated, or a theme.
Radically different can be somewhat jarring, and you don't want to create that feeling for yourself or your guests.
Created this back splash of sorts using dominoes (got a big bag at the thrift store for $2), applied with teacher's tack. The effect looks like a language or a code or a city at night. This isn't a bathroom with lots of splashy activity (yet), so I'm not terribly concerned about what will happen if this gets wet.
Using childhood game pieces for decorating purposes, and for purposes other than their original intent, to me = Pure Happiness.
Got the hand towel (showing the reverse side because it works better) and the soap dispenser from Target. The dispenser, which is from Isaac Mizrahi's line, was originally just white with the raised dots. I had to make the dots black with an opaque paint pen to echo the dots on the dominoes.
Sometimes you will have or will find the accessory that is perfect in every way for your space.
Other times, most times, you will find something that is close.
Don't be afraid to make the find 'yours' by painting or decoupaging it, etc. It's just one more way of putting your individual stamp on your room.
I didn't get a black and white rug, and here are the reasons why: I like bathroom floors to 'sit back'-- that is, I don't like them popping up visually, so I will often match the rug to the tile in order to accomplish this. Another reason is that a white rug shows dirt too easily, and a small black rug on a pale floor looks ooky. Like someone dropped their wig, or there's an animal in the room.
These little frames used to hold postage stamps in my former house. Here, little bits of scrapbook paper and the booth number I had at a craft show fill the frames. (The Boston Terrier is a music box who plays "What a Wonderful World".)
Remember, too, that what you TAKE OUT of a room can be as important as what you put IN a room. (This makes me think of a Regina Spektor lyric that says, "You can write, but you can't edit".)
You need to know how to edit when decorating a space.
Trust me, I have a LOT more B&W stuff, and don't think that I didn't trot it all down to the bathroom to play with it. But very few things stayed. Why? Because I didn't want this room to get too carried away. It's a Half Bath, not the Pantheon to All My Junk.
For some spaces, putting tons of stuff on every surface can look amazing, but you have to COMMIT to that look. Going half-way just looks unintentional, junky and tacky.
So, what am I saying? I'm saying:
Either practice some RESTRAINT, or go ALL-OUT.
Black & White Thinking about Home Dec.
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