Keep Calm and Quack On

My college bathroom was all about rubber duckies. I loved how those little yellow ducks brightened up a room and come on, they are adorable. Those ducks stayed with me move after move, from apartment to apartment and even made a debut in our guest bathroom of our house when we moved in.  But as my taste changed, and as I sadly grew up, I thought it was time to say our goodbyes. Well...not totally. I knew someday I would welcome their return...someday when I had the perfect excuse to drag that box down from the attic and bring those shiny little yellow ducks back into our home. You can get away with so much with a kiddo, am I right?

So here they are again! I'm bringing them back...with style!

Before our recent re-do, our guest bathroom was kind of boring. Grays, tans, neutrals, nothing too exciting. We did a couple updates from the builder grade options. We added a framed mirror and granite counter tops, so that in itself was a huge improvement from when we moved in. But it just wasn't very inviting, especially for a kid.  So my goal was to keep it classy, but to make it more kid friendly and fun.  As you can see some of the original decorations have returned, but with a more modern flare.

The first thing I changed was the paint color.  It wasn't a big change, but I went from a tan (Sherwin Williams Bungalow Beige) to a gray with tan undertones.  You don't even want to know how many gray samples I went through to find the perfect gray...but just to name a few...

It's really hard to find the perfect gray, especially when you are working in an interior room.  Everything looks different than it does in the store.  Plus I was trying to find a gray that would still compliment the wooden cabinets.  I would love to paint the cabinets someday...maybe in the dark gray or black family...but that's on the back burner for now, so I had to find something that would work with the existing colors.  In the end I went with Behr Cotton Grey.  It was just enough gray to match the shower curtain, but it still had enough tan in it to match the counter and cabinets.  And it lightened up the room pretty significantly, so bonus there!

Next I went shower curtain shopping.  I knew I wanted something bold, but also something that didn't steal the show.  In the end it was between this striped one from West Elm or this chevron one from Urban Outfitters.  It was a hard decision, but I knew I wanted to use chevron in other places in the design so I opted for stripes.  I love how these little ducks pop with the bold stripes!

The biggest change I wanted to implement was to remove the towel rod and replace it with hooks, and lower it...a lot.  I don't understand why they hang those towel rods so high!  I didn't get a great before shot of the towel rod, (I think I was too excited to rip it out of the wall), but note how the towel rack is higher than the light switch.

And now it looks like this.  It's great for little hands to reach and it also is perfect when guests stay over.  It's my favorite addition to the bathroom by far.

The last and final touch was the frame wall.  I love how it turned out.  Minus the pictures, all of the artwork was done on my Silhouette.  I added punches of yellows, grays and whites and just had fun mixing and matching frames with the wooden sign.

I actually found these frames up in the attic with all my duck decor.  Total score on my pack rat tendencies!  I had to touch up the paint a little and add some new ribbon, but they really look brand new.

This was actually a piece of old fence that my hubby found for me.  I used a homemade stencil to add the saying and it works perfectly with the color scheme.

Of course I had to incorporate the chevron pattern somehow and why not throw in a little bit of vintage Sesame Street in as well.

And seriously, what room is complete without a keep calm sign these days?

There are still a couple things I would still like to add.  I would love to add some shelving on the opposite wall with jars to hold necessities like cotton and q-tips and band-aids.  I also think painting the cabinet a dark gray would really complete the look.  But we will see!

For now, I think it's perfect the way it is and the little man can't get enough of his ducks!

So, what do you think?


Linking up with Link Party Palooza at Tatertots & Jello.