Are you going with any particular style in mind? I'd think any color that doesn't outright clash with the floor would look good. Bold colors are "in" now, so you might indulge your sunset colors impulse. Small bathrooms are a great place to use daring colors. Try a few sample painted areas and see how they look as the sun moves around during the day.

We have a west-facing bathroom under the eaves too, and it's a magical room. I don't know if you like english, or cottage style bathrooms, but i thought the angled ceiling lent itself well to that. We painted the walls a pale glacial blue, with white wainscotting and trim. It reminds me of something out of Beatrix Potter, which I love.

Have fun with it!

Did you take a look at the Gallery thread on Bathrooms? There's a kazillion inspirational pictures in there.

Thank you folks. Will check out the bathroom forum.

Egg, I was thinking pale instead of bold. Beatrix Potter sounds great, love it too. She had some beautiful warm colors in her art, I should go check out my book.

For some reason I was thinking, west = warm colors, but I just read something else that says the opposite. I'll have to consider the cools as well. However, I just see a faint warm pink or terra cotta as flattering to the skin and soothing. Also I live in a cool climate.

TA!

I honestly don't know any color theory, I'm sure it'd make some difference. But also, it's nice to have a color you love. Maybe I lucked out with the color we used for the NW facing room, but it looks beautiful to me, because I love the color.

I'm amazed at the colors that sometimes look fantastic in people's homes, colors that never would have appealed to me on the chart. It's frustrating to me that I don't have the talent to find them myself!

If you're interested in pale colors, look at BM's Off-Whites collection; many of them are not actually off-white, but just very soft, light tones that will usually intensify some on the wall. Terracotta had popped into my head too but going too pale with terracotta can get into some weird peachy-pinky stuff and even end up looking rather like foundation makeup (BTDT).

I prefer warmer undertones in west-facing rooms because for western light has that luscious dipped-in-honey feel, especially mid-to-late afternoon, but that's just me, and I'm not really one for the cool colors anyway. In our rental house the double-height living room (which I hated because we always froze in there) with huge windows faced west and was initially painted a pale ice blue. It felt very cold and dreary when the sun wasn't shining directly and strongly into the windows, and when it did the golden-tinged light turned the blue a really strange color that I found quite offputting. The landlord said we could paint IF we used an off-white and used the same color throughout the house; after about a hundred chips and a lot of testing we settled on SW Navajo White, a medium cream color, which worked well in all the rooms. In my previous house the living room faced southwesterly and although it was painted a subdued midtone lavender, we chose a color with a definite tinge of brown/tan to it to keep it warmed up. I think a lot may depend on location, too - in a very warm climate, where a west-facing room would probably be roasting hot the majority of the year, trying to make that seem cooler makes more sense than it does in a cold climate where for much of the year you're trying to take advantage of every scrap of warm feeling you can get. :-)

Also, much depends on what colors flatter you and your family. I always laugh when people Lay Down The Law that "thou shalt not paint a bathroom green" when the bathroom color that suits me BEST is green - the dreaded olive green, even!

Make sure you choose the paint color based on the light when you're going to see the room most. If you usually see the bathroom under artificial lighting conditions because of a long work schedule, consider colors under that lighting first. Narrow it down to three or four colors you really like and look at those in other lighting conditions (as much as you can, trying to gauge how the winter light is going to be in June doesn't do you any good) - you will probably find one that is OK all the time. Going the other way around can yield some big mistakes, I found. I chose a color for our previous house's library based on how it looked with bright summer sunlight pouring into the room, even though the room was sunny maybe two hours out of the day and we get that kind of summery light maybe 10-12 weeks a year (if it's not raining!)... at night and in winter it looked terrible. :-( I hated it from the day it went up until the day we moved out - DH hates painting and I can't so I didn't have the nerve to make him change it.

Lastly, you will of course have to take into account the undertones in the beige floor. Beiges are tricky to work with/around because of those darned undertones, and combining a peach-undertoned beige with a green-undertoned beige (for example) can result in something rather ghastly.

Thank you folks.

johnmari, you've pretty much echoed my thoughts. Do you live in the NW also? Funny, we've painted all the rooms in our house we'd like to sell Navaho White. It really is a great neutral off-white.

I'll just have to use some samples to play with if I get that house! I'm intrigued by what I've seen of the Ellen Kennon products, so may try them out.

TA

This is my sunset inspiration picture:

(Taken on the west coast of Florida at my parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration.)

HTH

No, not the bathroom forum... the Decorating forum Gallery. Close this thread. Now look at the list of all the threads. Go to the top and to the right and click on "Gallery." Then look for the Bathrooms thread, and enjoy the others while you're there, too. :)

Here, I'll give you a direct link to it but wanted you to know how to get to it for next time...

Here is a link that might be useful: Gallery Bathrooms thread

mercurygirl, I live in New Hampshire. Lots and lots of thin winter light and many gray and drab days all year, although admittedly not quite as many as the NW.

FWIW, the Devine Color paint company is based in the PNW and most of the colors are formulated for the light in that region. Might be worth looking at. (I find the company owner a little pompous, but the colors are pretty.)

I didn't know, though, that you weren't in the house yet. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten, and passed on to others, is to live in a house for a few months at least before nailing down your paint colors so that you can understand how the light behaves and so on. If you desperately need to just cover over that brown so you don't go completely mad :-) throw a neutral off-white/cream up there temporarily.