Bathroom Redo – How to Make a Pink Tub & Tile ‘Disappear’

When you move into an older home and your decorating budget is being largely spent on your main living areas, dealing with a pink tile and tub in the bathroom can be quite a challenge. So until you can replace the tub and tile, here are some decorating tips that can help move the pink away from center stage.

Go Neutral: Choose neutral shades for the walls in your bathroom. If the pink tile has warm undertones to it use neutral brown tones, and if the pink tile has cool undertones to it use a neutral gray on the walls. By pairing the pink tile with these neutral colors, you will visually soften the contrast between the tile and the walls and allow it all to blend together.

Play Up the Walls: Once you have your neutral walls balanced with the tile, choose your accessories to match your wall color but a few shades darker. By promoting the neutral tones you begin to pull attention away from the pink tile and tub.

Bold Accent: After you have all of your neutrals in place, choose a bold color to use as your accent or focal point in the room. A bold blue, a deep emerald or even a bright turquoise all command the eye’s attention and further detract from the pink tile.

Accentuate the Undertone: As you consider your wall color understand that the pink tile will actually seem to change colors as you pair it with a new wall color. For example, if you pair baby pink with white it just looks pink, but when paired with a rich terracotta color it suddenly looks more salmon. By making this subtle shift in the appearance of the pink tile, you can now go on to decorate around an earth tone palette with terracotta and salmon rather than trying to decorate around bright pink. Try a few different color swatches on the wall to get a feel for how the light works with different colors in your space.

Decorating Neighbors: By using neighboring colors on the color wheel to pair with your pink tiles like orange, red or yellow, you make pink part of the background palette rather than the focus of the room. You can also incorporate pattern into the mix to liven up the space. So you could paint your walls yellow and add a geometric or floral shower curtain that contains reds, yellows and oranges to make a bright, cheery space. Then you can finish tying the look together with accessories and a bathmat.

Use a Barrier: Another more direct way that you can minimize the appearance of your pink tiles is to simply cover them up. By putting in a large bathroom rug and hanging a ceiling to floor shower curtain, you can simply make the pink tub and tile go away.

Create a Focal Point: You can also use the magician’s trick of misdirection to make the pink seem to disappear by adding a dramatic accent piece in your bathroom. If you have an attention grabbing wall treatment, your eye will be so busy taking it all in that you will not have time to even notice the pink tile. A large mirror with interesting wall sconces or a huge window with a dramatic window treatment can pull the eye away from the tired, old pink tub and tile until you have the time and money to replace it.