The Green Room

 Dear reader,

Apologies for my being a few days late in posting. I’m finding myself still wiped out and with cold symptoms after my first Covid stint a few weeks ago. 

So rather than showing you photos of my bleary eyed self, I thought you might want to have a look at a recent project of mine.

Welcome to Le Loovre!

I recently gave my downstairs guest loo a makeover.

It sorely needed it!

In the first picture above, you see the state of the bathroom before I got loose on it. Beige. Meh. No soul.

It was room I pretty much turned a blind eye to for a decade because to be honest I couldn’t think of what to do with the space.  Everything was a cream colour.  The walls were cream.  The floor was a sort of ivory cream. The shower was similar, but had a mosaic trim in various shades of brown, and it was that which had blinded me and had in the past stunted any inspiration I had for this room. So I did nothing.

Then suddenly the stars were aligned, and I had an idea for the room! It shall be green!

And so it was!

Quickly the idea became a plan, then the plan a reality. 

Walls woodwork and ceiling were painted in a sultry dark green. It’s called Calke Green and it’s from Farrow and Ball.

Once the room had been painted, I set to dealing with the very unsatisfactory window arrangement.

Previously the room had Roman blinds in a neutral color on both the window and the glazed door. It was not satisfactory; the blind flopped anround each time the door was accessed, and strings flapped as they do with Roman blinds.

Amazingly, I found something called privacy film. I then found that you could get it in various styles patterns and colours. I was like a child in a sweetie job!

Eventually, I settled on this green based stained glass effect film, which matched my vision for the room, more on that later.

I housed all the cleaning materials in a coordinating tote bag hanging behind the door.

The bathroom had no wall space to fit a toilet roll holder, so I came up with the idea of putting a toilet roll inside a brown weave cube from a unit that previously sat on the floor in the room. You can see that just at the side of the loo in the pic below. 

I hung the rest of the unit on the wall. It houses spare towels, soaps, etc. I think it’s important to keep floorspace clear in a small room so I’ve used shelves or the wall for storage, keeping the floor clear. 

Even if I say so myself, I think it’s a clever idea to dispense toilet paper in a little cube. 

Of course all projects start with a mood board, here’s mine.

And yes, my inspiration was the Mona Lisa. I came about that inspiration through a long winded chain of events that I won’t bore you with here, but I felt that there was a cunning play on words with having a picture that hangs in the Louvre in the loo, making it my Loovre!

And here is the original, still hanging safely in the Louvre.

And here is my print from Amazon hanging in my Loovre. 

So, no masterpieces were stolen in process of this makeover.

The brown themed mosaic tiling running through the shower had always been something that held me back from decorating this space, as I

mentioned earlier.  So restricting. 

As soon as Mona inspired me to go with the green and brown palette displayed in her iconic picture, I came up with a solution for those mosaic tiles. Green nail varnish. 

Yes I splodged varnish on random tiles in the mosaic to bring the green into the shower.  It now looks like it was meant to be.

I accessorized with many things from around the house. The pampas grass comes from the garden and is set in a lovely heavy cast-iron vase, which was my mum’s.

It is a universal truth that objects of great importance should be housed in the downstairs loo, right?

Yes, the before pictures really do show that the room had no soul before I got loose on it. I think it’s what you call meh.  I think it has soul in bucketloads now - do you?

The plastic toilet seat needed replacing, that is clear. Inspired by Mona’s colour palette, I flew with the brown in the picture and bought a dark-stained wooden seat from Amazon.

I already had the smaller fake pampas grass which I thought would pair nicely with mummy pampas grass in the corner.  I think that adds a cute touch. 

You can’t see it in this pic but the storage unit is now screwed to the wall above the pampas.

  

In such a small space I thought it was it was important to keep the floor clear. The elephant which housed the cleaning materials previously together with waste paper bin and the elephant bathmat all found a new home elsewhere in the house, more on that in a later post.

I have to say that several months on I am still uplifted each time I step into the Loovre.  What amazes me is that you can create such difference in a space with very little money but with more than a little thought, and thought is free, currently at least!

And when the project was finished, my treat to self was to indulge in a proper sign to go over the door. I really like that touch!

In fact there are many touches in this little space that please me.  

Are there things from this makeover that you particularly like, or that maybe inspire you to make changes in your home?  Please tell me in the comments, I’d love to hear.

I’ve put together a short video of the bathroom makeover, you can find it on YouTube following this link https://youtu.be/vG7NDaErJ70?si=5EAdTHvOiu6Ki_b4

It would make my day if you popped over to watch it.

My spend on this little project:

Mona Lisa 15, https://amzn.to/3YYJXap

Emulsion 30

Eggshell 30

Overhead lights 30 (needing replacing)

Glass privacy film 12, https://amzn.to/4fLL5nx

2 Green Ivy hand towels 12, https://www.next.co.uk/style/st276848/t56285#t56285

Bath mat 17, similar https://www.next.co.uk/style/su215165/420235#420235

Gloss varnish, £7, similar https://amzn.to/4eqcJFy

Cleaning product storage n/a, used existing cubes

Louvre sign 11, https://amzn.to/4epCs0H

Toilet seat, 43, https://amzn.to/3Z6pCPx

Total £204.00

A la perchoine,

Mary x. 

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Thank you 🙏🥰.