Sometimes an idea is not just a fixed thing but an evolving one. Even though the owners of this bathroom wanted a `quick makeover’, the scheme went through several incarnations before emerging as a sort of purple boudoir.
A ‘quick’ makeover, this space had several obvious problems. The ceiling was disproportionately high for the room; the previous owners had tried to solve this by tiling to shoulder height. This made the place feel like a public lavatory. The colours were also cold, the floor uninteresting, and the toilet was right next to the bath. Very unsatisfactory.
Initially, the solution lay in a black and white scheme, lowering the tiles and ‘losing’ the ceiling in white. Accessories would be chrome. Very 1930s, and very stylish. But the ceiling idea just wouldn’t work in such a small space. We really needed to bring it down, and the best way to do this optically was with a warm, advancing colour like red, or orange. But why not bring the colour down the wall too, to drag the ceiling down even further? Brilliant! The canopy idea was born, still in a decorative 1930s vein. Furthermore, since black, white and orange seemed a rather severe combination, the colour purple sprang to mind as an almost obvious choice for down below. The whole room was re-decorated, including flooring and tiles, for less than £1000.
