[Project Reveal} Striped Bathroom Walls

Sometimes I wish somebody would grab me by the shoulders, look me square in the eye and say, "no Erin, you are not going to do that."

That's what I texted to my friend Elissa yesterday in the middle of what had already begun to feel like a complete disaster of a project just a couple of paint strokes in. I've always considered myself extremely fortunate to have a husband that shakes his head and looks the other way with the constant turnover in our home decor. But yesterday, well I was quickly wishing he had reminded me that I was on vacation and then stood his ground and forbid me to paint stripes across our middle bathroom wall.

I blame it on my recent stay at The Avalon hotel and Kelly Wearstler. I've always admired it from afar, but two mornings of cappuccinos under a canopy of stripes in the hotel restaurant and I came home resolved to replicate a similar design in my own home. I had the perfect place in mind for a little deco inspired pattern too. I'd been searching high and low for the right pattern at the right cost, as a temporary (3-4 years) solution for our guest bathroom. At some point, the renovations at Holtwood House will turn to this well traveled room with a complete redux incorporating new tile, countertops, shower doors and flooring. But for now, it was desperately in need of a little zhushing to hold us over.

So yesterday I found myself two hours and two rolls deep in painter's tape and already wishing I had thrown down the small fortune it would have cost to paper the bathroom in one of the many rolls I had contemplated over the last couple of months. Perhaps it just would have been worth it. The measuring and re-measuring and checking with the level was starting to put me over the edge. Our walls are slightly textured as well, so despite pressing and re-pressing down those edges, I was sure I'd get feathered lines.

When the first rolls of paint hit the wall, I was in sheer, irrational, panic mode. Should I grab my rag and try to wipe it all off and abandon the project now? At some point as I kept on rolling away, I talked myself off the ledge and reasoned that it was just paint and I could roll right on over all it if it was a complete disaster.

Thank God it wasn't.

It's probably one of the happiest little spots at Holtwood House at this point. I can't stop flipping on the lights to get another peek.

For this project, I used Silver Drop by Behr as the background color and painted over it with stripes of Almost Aqua by Glidden. For scale, the stripes are 6" each and offset only once down the middle of the sink. I'm halfway through a matching chevron pattern on the back of the door as well, though I'm waiting to install new door hardware in order to finish up the painting.

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