The bathroom was nice enough. It was very large –especially by New York standards, and had a big window. The glass tile left us cold, though. I like icy blue in general, but paired with the gray floor and the plain white walls, it created a chilly atmosphere that got a little clinical edge from the (unflattering) light from the fluorescent strip over the mirror.
But we had neither the time nor the budget to remodel any of the bathrooms. A little decorating would have to do.
I began to search for wallpaper, and found Flavorpaper in Brooklyn, New York, a company that makes beautiful and very cool hand silkscreened wallpapers. The pattern I liked best for this room is called Kashmiri (shown in red and yellow below) –I thought it was bold and happy, and the scale worked well for the space. The only catch was none of their standard colorways worked with the tile.
Flavorpaper offers custom colors at no additional charge, though, and a visit to their beautiful showroom and print shop in Brooklyn convinced me that a custom Kashmiri was the way to go. They very patiently helped me choose from among their many inks and papers to create our own version of the pattern.
The first step was to test the blue and green inks on the matte silver foil I chose.
Then they printed a proof so we could see how the colors worked with the pattern and how the finished paper would look in the room.
I like the way it all turned out. The green warms up the room, and the paper is lively to the point of being a little crazy, which, I think, banishes all thoughts of the doctor’s office.
Replacing the fluorescent strip with midcentury-inspired pendants from Rejuvenation Lighting made the room usable by people over 40.
