Decorate in Shabby Chic style
Decorating a bathroom in Shabby Chic creates a relaxed, casual space that allows you to express your personality. Warm, cosy, worn and comfortable - pleasant memories of days gone by along with unique personal little touches.
Not only white and ivory, Shabby Chic also takes it's influence from French country style with its rich but muted earth tones and the old worn look .
So, what is Shabby Chic?
Furniture
Whether you love finding treasures at flea markets or secondhand shops, or even having pieces Shabby Chic furniture made to order, furniture is vintage with a look that says its been around for ages. Finishes can be crackled, lightly distressed, or given a trademark heavy shabby finish. Colours can be white, ivory, colonial red, heritage blue, black or teal in muted shades.
Shabby Chic allows you to mix and match furniture for different periods. A Victorian hand basin alongside a Shaker cabinet with an ornate gilded mirror is just one example of mixing things up.
Vintage details
A lovingly restored cabinet becomes a vanity unit. Old tin ceiling panels adorn the doors of this Shabby Chic bathroom vanity.
Colours
Pale muted tones are wonderful in dull bathrooms, providing a pleasing pick-me-up in the morning. A sink placed into an antique painted dresser allows ample room for bathroom accessories and, when paired with a flea market framed mirror, give the impression of a vanity table.
As a mix-it-up style, Shabby Chic allows you to be creative with colour. You're not limited to white or ivory - add a splash of black as an accent colour.
Accessories
You will find bargains all over the place, from auction sales, to secondhand stores, to having pieces made to order. Materials of various pedigrees, such as a gilded mirror frame and an old, oxidized faucet, harmonize nicely.
Old plant hangers, towel racks, tossed out stepladders, even a fireplace surround - all can be given a coat or two of paint and put to use in a Shabby Chic bathroom. If you're prepared to do some shopping around at salvage you may pick up a bargain or two. The salvaged fireplace provides the perfect backdrop for a claw-footed tub.
