tinkering the bathroom floor, part I

Not long after taking on the steps project I begin leering at the floor of our only bathroom.

The stone tile floor never looked or felt clean.

Feeling emboldened from completing the steps project and left with enough white floor paint to get started, I was off and running, or kneeling uncomfortably and stretching, but you get the idea ...

Note the flamenco shower curtain tucked-in with ruffles rising from the blowing fan used to dry the floor between coats of paint. A few months later I have no regrets, however while the white floor opens the space visually, it's no hiding place for daily wear and tear and could benefit from some color and pattern to mix things up. I clicked over to Pinterest and while dazzled by a myriad of images, was having trouble visualizing how any of them would work for my postage stamp sized floor. So, I did a little tinkering ...

I imported an image of the bathroom into a Word document and went to Remove Background. This is my simplified work-around of a Photoshop feature.

Next, I marked the areas to remove as well as the sections to keep. Once I had successfully removed the floor from the photo, I Saved As a PNG. With the floor removed, I could now insert all kinds of images pinned to my steps + floors board to get a sense of how they might look. I did this at PicMonkey > Design > Add your own overlay.

While not a perfect system, I found this very helpful in ruling out certain ideas like bringing in bright yellow or papering the floor in a busy floral print.

All images are Click to Enlarge

I believe I have come up with a winner -- the largest square shown above! My idea is to use the existing bathroom tile to create a checkerboard pattern in blocks of four, using a color scheme similar to the one pictured. Once finished, I'll protect well with a sealant meant for floors (that's research for another day, any faves?). Not 100% sure when I'll start the painting ... could be tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., could be next month but I'll be sure to post pics along the way on Instagram, which has become a visual notepad if this is my diary.

I hope this idea helps you in planning a project! Below are selected images from the thumbnails above. I honestly didn't feel like watermarking them so if you share them, please cite me as the source. Many thanks.

Thank you for reading!

xo

elyse

Image sources of flooring available here