LESLIE: Linda in Virginia finds The Money Pit on WSVA. And how can we help you?
LINDA: Hi. We just moved into a house. It’s a 24-year-old home. The master bathroom – the sink and commode are both an off-white color. The tub is green. (laughter)
TOM: You know what always amazes me about those homes? Imagine the conversation back in, you know, 1972 when that couple was trying to decide; pick out those colors, you know. (Linda chuckles) “I think avocado green is the perfect tub color, honey. What do you think?” You know? (Linda chuckles)
LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Avocado green is my favorite.
TOM: And here we are dealing with this now.
LESLIE: Well Linda, do you like it?
LINDA: Well, it just kind of catches my eye every time I go in. I mean my husband and I probably will be the only ones that will ever see it. But I mean I can live with it if I have to. (chuckling)
LESLIE: I mean because you can – if you like the tub, you could have it reglazed professionally so that it is durably finished and will last forever and you could have it to match the rest of the fixtures in the bath. Or if you think it’s kind of fun, we can figure out a color scheme and maybe some mosaic tiles or one-inch tiles that could balance that green monster in the bath.
LINDA: Uh-huh. Now it has new tile – well, they look like new tiles – all up around the tub.
TOM: Uh-huh.
LINDA: And around the walls of the bathroom. Other than the green tub, everything’s pretty in there.
LESLIE: So are you feeling like you would want to replace that tub or you just want to figure out how to make it work?
LINDA: I don’t think we’ll replace it. We had a price and it was just – he said it would be such an awful lot of work to tear out all the tile that’s in there; because like I said, the tile is in really good shape.
LESLIE: Well, the easiest thing I would say, if you want to just bring in some other decorative items that are going to work, maybe go for a drapery or a window treatment in that room that is predominantly of a neutral color but has a green border or stripe inset into it that works with that color …
LINDA: OK.
LESLIE: … so it still stays neutral but it’s carrying that color over to the other side of the room and giving some balance. Maybe all of the soap dish holders or dispensers and toothbrush holders also have a fun pattern or stripe or something that gives a hint of that green. Of course you can bring it in with towels, you can bring it in with bath mats, shower curtains. And remember that complementary colors really do provide excellent balance. And the complementary color to green would be red, which gives you a range of pinks and browns which could really work well with the neutrals and the green.
LINDA: OK. That helps a lot. I may work on something like that.
LESLIE: Perfect.
TOM: Yeah, with projects like that it makes sense to decorate around it since it’s so difficult and costly to actually replace the tub. You know, this is the same kind of decorating advice that we often will give in the kitchen, for example, where maybe you have really dark cabinets but everything else in the kitchen, you know, really needs to be lighter. You can lighten it up and feature the cabinets. So there are ways, always, to decorate around these areas.
LINDA: Right. I hadn’t – well, I hadn’t thought about bringing in the color.
LESLIE: I mean why not? Because it’s standing out to you because it’s the only thing in the room that’s that color. So if you give it some balance …
TOM: The more color you bring in, the more neutral it becomes.
LINDA: That’s true. Thank you so much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Leave a Reply