How the Lemur bathroom came to be…

Once upon a time in the North West suburbs of Perth, there was a little bathroom that did.

It was big enough. It had a stand along bath, glass walled shower and good airflow.  It was functional. It allowed the family to clean themselves and had positioned itself between the hallway, toilet and bedroom without issue.

It wasn’t offensive, dilapidated or broken. But – it was plain, underwhelming and crying out to be noticed.  It longed to be the bathroom it knew it was born to be!

We wanted to zjoosh up this nice, ordinary and uninspiring bathroom but didn’t want to spend thousands in regutting and reworking everything from the pipes to the tiles; nor did we have the luxury of time to take this family bathroom out of operation for weeks on end and orchestrate the movements of a trail of tradies.

Instead, we chose to give her a makeover, a glow up if you will.

This bathroom serviced a family of six with four small children, their guests and the occasional domesticated animal.  Whatever we did had to be able to withstand the demands of a carefully choreographed or, more often than not, chaotic bathtime and toothbrushing routine; be appealing and sophisticated enough to work as a guest bathroom and toilet for grownups; be able to accommodate small children getting ready for school in the morning; and also be future proofed and workable for when those little children grow up and demand more time in front of the mirror preening themselves for tweenagedom, teenagerness and young adulthood.

Cue the bold paint and some lively wallpaper with punch and personality!

We found some striking and vivacious wallpaper which appealed to the fun, whimsy distinction and punch we wanted for the room.  Happily, this wallpaper also featured a broad and vivid reaching colour palette which enables the décor, accessories and linen to be easily swapped in and out on a whim and on any budget.

Unique, versatile and affordable – tick.

With our resistance to pulling up any perfectly good tiles and creating more work, we had to decide what we were going to do with the very dated Federation/Heritage themed tile frieze that separated the eucalypt green paint and cream tile.  Whatever we decided on had to work in with the burgundy tile inlay on the floor.  Our solution was to paint over the frieze with Dulux Firebelly, a gorgeous, rich clarety red with enough body and soul to compliment the wallpaper and still work seamlessly and subtly with the floor tile.

Once the painting was done, dried and dusted, it was time for our Wallpaper Guru – Paul, to do his thing and really bring the room alive.  With each drape of wallpaper hung, the bold new personality of the room took shape.

The moody and sophisticated blue background and intense colour in the design of the wallpaper works beautifully with the creamy understated tile.  All three elements are gorgeously matched to the Firebelly frieze.  The colours in the wallpaper have been further brought out with the ruby red and jade green of the towels on display, the green of the foliage and the texture of the brass planter on the shelf.  The use of the red urn as a planter adds another level of interest as does the vintage mirror on the wall.  The lemurs are a source of much amusement, continuing to woo and enchant adults while providing counting opportunities and food for thought for the four young charges who frequent the facilities each day.

Lemurs, in a bathroom, who’d a thought…