La La Love

Since about the year 2000 I've been making New Year's resolutions, and I take them very seriously. Posting the list right on the refrigerator and looking at it daily helps me to accomplish them. Getting started right away on an easy one is another way to ensure success. This year #5--paint the bathroom--was the lucky choice for starters.

The back wing of my house has been remodeled from a warren of rooms into a huge skylit kitchen and lav with loft above (the original kitchen was in the cellar). A 15-foot-square stained glass window, dating from the same period as the house but probably originally from a church, has been set into the south-facing wall. All this was done in about 1986 and never changed since, and the colors scream "80s" to me.

The cabinetry is pickled oak, that light pinkish color I never liked even when it was in fashion. All the wood trim, including the frame of the big window, is painted the same pinky white. The walls are a chalky matte off-white and look like unpainted sheetrock. The floor and doors are stained a dark walnut. Too much contrast; not enough warmth or color for me. And the space is so cavernous--the ceiling soars to 20 feet in one part--and so light-filled that there's no need to use light colors to give the illusion of space.

I've decided that in redoing the kitchen, I'll use the colors in the window. Periwinkle blue, acid green, crimson, royal purple. Tangerine, turquoise, gold. Kindergarten colors? Maybe, but they're in that antique window, so they're authentic period colors. Anyway, I've got ten more rooms in the front of the house to decorate in subdued and elegant fashion.

I decided that the bathroom should match the rose pink of the uppermost panes. I snapped a picture of the stained glass window, then took the camera to the hardware store to match the paint. The color I ended up with is called "la la love."

Here's a picture of the room with the first coat of paint applied. I know, I know. It looks like some six-year-old girl's idea of a dream bedroom, lacking only the Barbie bedspread. But I'm thinking rather of those 50s bathrooms with the poodles on the wallpaper. My Aunt Jean had one of those. Does anybody besides me remember poodles on the wall?