Can someone tell me

[homesteadmamma]

I'm looking at painting our bathroom. Right now it's green (an ugly green) and everything is painted the same green, even the ceiling.

Is that the way to do it, paint the whole bathroom, along with the ceiling the same color? I'm not sure how to go about it.

[Kimberlina]

Well, if you want to make it look bigger, you should paint the ceiling a lighter color than the walls.

Our bathroom in a light brown with light cocoa trim. The ceiling is white. I think Christopher Lowell said that if you can, you should add a little of a similar tone to the white ceiling paint. So in our family room, the walls are light blue, and the white ciling has a slightly blueish tint to it, though I don't know if it really makes any difference or if anyone (including DH and I) notices it.

Our bathroom was a really hideous shade of green when we bought the house. I really, really love the light brown (similar to tan.) I have a black and gold scroll design border in there and it looks great- we pulled the colors for the wall and the trim from the border, which we got on clearance.

Let us know what you decide to change it to.

[Darlene]

When we moved in here ceiling and woodork was painted white & walls we're beige. We kept the white where it was and painted the walls a sugar cookie yellow. I like the walls & ceiling to be different.

[Englishlady]

Putting on my interior designer hat for a minute I think if you want to want to make life easier then white is the way to go.

White is inoffesnsive if/when you want to move house and whilst I love colour and have it all over my house, the Bathroom and Kitchen are white.

White can be accented with any colour towels/ bath mats/shower curtains/tooth mugs that kind of thing................

Doing it this way makes it light bright and not too "clinical"

Of course if you have tiles anywhere that have to stay, then that opens up another chapter

[canadian gardener]

I have a white ceiling and it adds a soft brightness to the space.

I ditto, keep it neutral if there is even a hint that you might be moving any time in the near future before repainting.

That may be white or a soft beige.

My own is Benny Moore's Yarmouth Blue and Cloud White for trim and lower half. (where the beadboard will be when dh gets around to it)

Although I have a pure flat white on the ceiling I will be doing Cloud White for the ceilings when I next repaint.

It reads as pure white but as if the sunlight was landing on it. I find that one has the veriest drop of yellow. Not enough to see it but enough that the rooms that have a lot of it seem like a pure white with sunlight coming from somewheres.

I've been watching Cityline TV on home day and Ben Moore's Barely Beige is a good neutral beige that is very light and warm and comfy if you don't want all white such as Cloud White.

Then you can add colour with towels or as Karen says, in the tiles or in the accents.

[canadian gardener]

Oh and one more thing.

Don't paint it darker in the bathroom if you take showers or it gets steamy from long tub sessions.

The water tracks show.

I used an eggshell on the upper walls and a pearl texture on the lower ones (halfway between eggshell and semigloss) and a totally matte flat on the ceiling.

Pearl is almost eggshell if you need scrubbability as most bathrooms do, but keep the ceiling in a flat if you can.

it reduces that shiny clinical look and just keeps it soft and bright without glare or reflection

oh and last of all, the shinier the paint, the more the imperfections show.

The eggshell finish looks better than the pearl where I didn't do teh best job prepping the joins with plaster etc.

[mom22grls]

I have done my bathroom ceiling the same color as my walls before. I didn't mind it. My kitchen ceiling is the same as a majority of my walls...I like it that way.
But, in other rooms, I have white ceilings & colored walls.

Look around in magazines & online & see what strikes your fancy...then mimick that.....that's what I'd do.

And yes, darker colors in the bathroom show *streaks* of dampness..........I'm trying to get to my bathroom now & get it re-painted....I thought it'd be a brilliant idea to paint a chartreuse color with several stripes of different colors horizontally at the top. It matched my rugs. Boy what a mistake! I have to wash the walls about once a week to keep them looking nice...UG! Who has time to wash bathroom walls??!! LOL!

[marym]

A trick I learned was to take 1 cup of the paint you are using on your wall and mix it with ceiling white, that way the contrast between the colored wall and white ceiling is not so stark.

I used 1 cup of wall to 1 gal of ceiling white.