Mercifully, my Florida house escaped the wrath of Hurricane Michael. The real estate agent emailed to say she drove past the house and there’s no damage from wind or flooding. I suspect the panel fence in the back got knocked over, but that is so minor compared to what we were bracing for. And so it looks like I am going to have to continue purging and packing. I was kind of hoping for a hurricane-related reprieve of a few weeks but that is not the case.
Who wants to spend their time working on that when I can devote myself to minor but life enhancing projects ? I call this a project but it only took 30 minutes total. And that included cutting open the plastic bags that I used for drop cloths.
The guest bathroom is a color that I’m calling “Clay Flower Pot” and it’s going to stay that way for a while. The ceilings in this place are 9 or 10 feet high and I am no longer willing to climb ladders and stretch away from the center of gravity to do my own painting. It’s my least favorite wall color in the house but my plan is to overwhelm the senses with a riot of color and design so that the wall color is the last thing you would notice.
Just kidding! My plan is to create tranquility and subtly downplay the wall color. I’m doing this by using a plain white shower curtain*, fancy bathroom accouterments and complimentary colors for the towels.
But what to do about wall art? Let me tell you something: it’s almost impossible to avoid the lure of a seashell/starfish/coastal theme when decorating a bathroom. Bed Bath and Beyond (or Bed Bath and Behind , as Sami calls it) currently has 14 different kinds of seashell/starfish/coastal bath ensemble themes. And they all look good to me! But I know myself and I know that I would get sick of that pretty quickly so I am going paisley/goldfish as the decor theme here.
Paisley/goldfish.
But first , let’s pause for a moment while I say goodbye to the first thing that I wanted to buy for the new house – even before I had a new house – the Sandpiper area rug:
I loved the idea of this thing as a bath mat. Loved it, I tell you. You could imagine yourself standing on the sand while you dried off, with weird skittery birds eyeing up your toes.
Anyway, I had a picture that I really love hanging in my office that would be ideal for this bathroom. It’s The Goldfish, which I think qualifies as a watery theme suitable for a bathroom. It just needed a little jazzing up. So I used some paper McDonald’s napkins to dab bright copper acrylic paint onto the dreary black matte frame and ici voila! we have a coordinate. The detail on those accouterments are tiny little coppery bumps outlining the enamel decorations. I am ignoring the fact that the orange fish kind of clash with the Clay Flower Pot wall color and the coppery frame looks a bit pink in full daylight. I’m very pleased with this whole thing.
I’m sure you’ll agree that dabbing paint onto a picture frame for a guest bathroom when we don’t even expect to have any guests (sad face) is a much better use of my time than purging and packing and actually getting ready for the move.
*I would have greatly preferred the matching shower curtain from BB&B with it’s big colorful paisleys, but instead I got a Hampton Inn shower curtain with the clear panel to see outside. Thanks, Alfred Hitchcock. The paisley shower curtain would look better from the outside but the Hampton Inn curtain is more comfortable/less claustrophobic from the inside. What is happening to me? I just chose function over form. How dreary.
Cripes Suzette 
Happy to hear you had no damage… and I love that Sandpiper rug!!
Thanks! We were on pins and needles the whole time. I think Matthew was worse for those in other parts of the state – we were lucky.
Very happy to hear all is well with the new home and landscape. I love the pattern on the bath accessories. Looking forward to seeing the white shower curtain as there are millions to choose from. Will there be starfish shower curtain rings? 🙂
Hampton Inn Hookless Shower curtain. No rings necessary. There are hundreds of white shower curtains, almost all of which are nicer classier than this one, but I know this curtain. It’s weighted on the bottom so it doesn’t billow, made mostly of washable fabric not plastic and I admit I do enjoy looking out of the clear panel.
Hookless? Where has this been all my life? I must have one, thanks for posting the picture!
Thanks for the update, was thinking about your new home. Even better news, the chances of another storm like that comes once every 168 years in that area 🙂
Amen to that!
Love the plan. I was in Fernandina Beach/Amelia Island for a wedding about two weeks ago. There aren’t many places I would care to move to but think I would like it there. Congratulations!
Isn’t it charming? Mostly I’m looking forward to lack of snow and ice. And planting a lemon tree.
Yesssss – you came thru unscathed!
My favorite part of our recent moving experience was decorating for the showings with (mainly) stuff I wanted for the new home. And I used my moved-away daughter’s abandoned drawer of nail polish to paint wall decor. So, so sad to empty out the house we raised kiddos in, but kind of fun to have House Beautiful (the way it should have been all those years!!!) for a several months. Got to stay in both old & new places, hundreds of miles apart, and thus the romantic rendezvous. Fun for a while, but what a relief to finally sell.
I love the wall color. At least the color it appears to be in the photo. I wish I were more adventurous with wall paint, but I grew up in a house with walls painted in pastel Easter egg colors, a different color in every room and I’m terrified that I’ll end up with that kind of insanity in my house. So, white, off-white and cream are my wall colors. And, I also put grandchild art on my walls, so I’m unredeemable.
So glad your house escaped damage. Karma I tell you.