home interior

I have always found the bathroom to be one of the most difficult rooms to decorate because of the unique atmosphere, and I am not just talking after taco night.

The bathroom is hit with a high amount of humidity on a daily basis. We use hot water to take our showers, some people have laundry facilities in the bathroom, and my little kids love their bath time. The steam covers the walls with little droplets, and more than a little water gets sloshed out of my children’s bath and onto the floor and walls.

You need to take this into account when decorating a bathroom. You can’t put up some random paint or wallpaper and expect everything to go according to plan. Here are some of the biggest pitfalls with bathroom decorating.

Water: When you have small children, bath time is more than just their time to play. It’s also quiet time for Mommy and Daddy. They splash water all over the floor and around the tub. If you have any fabric or paper decorations, then they will get soaked. I once had a fabric covered Kleenex box… well, not any more.

Untreated wood or wood that has been cut may begin to rot because of the barrage of water. I once made the mistake of cutting a vent hole into a sink cabinet. A few months of daily splashing later, and the wood began to soften and rot where the water hit the untreated part of the wood. I ended up getting a new cabinet.

Humidity: Hanging wallpaper in areas of high humidity is a difficult job. The problem isn’t putting up the wallpaper. It’s putting it up again and again because of the peeling from humidity. Standard wallpaper that you would put up in a living room isn’t meant for humidity. The glue that holds it to the wall can heat up and soon, panels start peeling. Make sure the wallpaper you buy is rated for use in the bathroom.

It’s also not a good idea to use a cheaply made water-based latex paint for the bathroom. The humidity can break down the paint, and soon you have pieces chipping off and peeling left and right.

Mold: The most disgusting and potentially most dangerous problem about decorating in the bathroom is the spread of mold. Mold loves warm, damp places, and there is no better place in the home for mold growth than the bathroom. It can start growing up your walls, around the crevices of your tile and on rotting wood. You can help solve the problem by using paint that discourages mold growth and by occasionally cleaning the bathroom with a water-bleach mixture. The bleach kills the mold, but be careful. Inhaling the bleach fumes can cause severe respiratory problems.

The bathroom can be a beautiful place, but make sure that you take the proper precautions, or else you could end up with a watery mess.