Shower curtains for Amy’s retro bathroom

pam kueber — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:00:04 +0000

When we looked at Amy’s vintage 1964 aqua bathroom recently, I promised I’d make some additional decorating suggestions. One thing reader Sara suggested was playing up the tub/shower at the end of the room with a great shower curtain. Excellent suggestion!

I’ve always been a fan of Calico Corners – so asked their PR department to suggest some fabrics that would work well for a shower curtain and window valence. The came up with some great patterns that would work beautifully in Amy’s bathroom – and which would allow her to keep the vintage aqua tile while still bringing the bathroom into the present with modern-day textiles. Interestingly: Jan Jessup of Calico Corners points out right off the top that turquoise is in!

Jan Jessup from Calico Corners writes:

“I took a look at the vintage bathrooms — and would you believe, that shade of turquoise is in style again! I think you need a fabric that is as assertive as the tile, in order to carry off the look. I have three patterns to suggest, and they all happen to come from the same designer, Thomas Paul, who has a very distinctive hand. Here are links to the fabrics:

DAHLIA, color Aegean (use this if you want to bring in some additional colors) – $20.99/yard. [Pam adds: My favorite of the bunch - I think bringing in additional colors would make Amy happy. You could match the rugs to the taupe leaves...and for sure add an accent to play off the chartreuse. I also think the taupe and chartreuse harmonize with the gold of your fabulous liner tile.]

SILHOUETTE, color Turquoise (an unusual stylized pattern, very graphic) – $23.99/yard. Note: SILHOUETTE has three other colors that could work, if you wanted to downplay the turquoise: Ebony, Amethyst and Kiwi–they can also be viewed at this same link.

AVIARY, color Robin (flowers with stylized birds, also very graphic) – $23.99/yard. Note: there is also an Earth (brown) color of AVIARY that would tie into the accent tile, if the owners want to downplay the aqua color.

….All of these fabrics are in our store in Louisville (not Lexington, I’m sorry)–or we can send small 6″ swatches for a quick color check. Homeowners can also purchase a large 18″ x 27″ sample, if desired, at a discounted price once they narrow down the candidates, before stepping up to cut yardage. If none of the above fabrics appeal to the homeowners, there are three other patterns on our website that may be candidates. These are all more multi-colored. You can type the following into the Search box at the top right and go right to them:

LAMBADA in Robin’s Egg – $18.99/yard (tropical floral)

ROWLILY in Palm Beach – $25.99/yard (tropical floral)

PROMENADE in Blue Sky – $27.99/yard (multi-color stripe)

Hope this is helpful…

Best,

Jan

Thanks, Jan! I want to especially what Jan said about “assertiveness” in decorating. If you are working with strong colors, you must take that into account with your complementary and accent colors – be careful, if you go too namby pamby with the soft pastels, they will just fade into nothingness. Blah. Amy actually is right on the mark with strong-ish brown rugs to counter the assertiveness of the tiles – that is certainly a viable direction – as also evidenced by Jan’s suggestion for brown AVIARY as another choice for the shower curtain.

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Shower curtains for Amy’s retro bathroom