We are almost finished renovating a house with knotty pine on the lower half of the living room walls. The previous owners had painted the top a mellow gold, we replaced it with BM Grenadier Pond, a sage green. If the link doesn't work: Go the BM site, click on Personal Color Viewer, click on the photo of the mirror, choose Living Rooms and Sitting Rooms. Scroll through the sample photos until you get to the Bold Touches photo. There's a knotty pine armoir in the photo. You can play with wall color until you get one that you like against the pine. Have fun and post pictures. Here is a link that might be useful: Wall color and knotty pine

Hate to say it, but I vote for the gut rehab if you can afford it. You would love it if you could pick everything out for yourself and update it. It's easy to splurge a bit on bathrooms because we don't need much in the way of volume of materials. So you could put in a really gorgeous slate floor, for instance. But if this is an "antique" house maybe this looks right for the house and is part of its charm? That's up to you. My inclination is if it's old subway tile it's priceless, so I'd work with it... but this... mmmm... not so much, sorry. If you decide to leave it for now, how about picking up some paint color chips at the store and holding them up to the picture to see how they look to you? Another choice is to beadboard over the wall tile, then redo your floor. You'd probably want to re-tile behind the tub in something neutral. You can also have a tub professionally resurfaced, and a bathroom remodel place can advise about the cost. It's undoubtedly cheaper than a new tub as I've seen them do it on HGTV's "Designed to Sell." You might want to take a photo to the hardware store and ask what they see as your possibilities and approximate costs for each thing. One word of warning... when you dig into old bathrooms there is often rot in the walls and floor from years of water, and mold. Subflooring may need to be replaced as well as wallboard. I'd just expect that. That's an added headache, but it's also a good reason to go for the gut rehab, to make sure it's structurally sound and mold-free. Do you have another bathroom in the house if you need to tear this one down? Whatever you do, please post before and aftef pics for us!

are you replacing the tub tile at all? or just the scroll piece? another idea is to take the same quartz countertop and have the top portion of your tub surround done in the same. that way both vanities and top of tub all match. doing a solid color would work better here since you'll want to coordinate w/the tile floor. If you did that, take the tile off the wall above the tub and you could do something like this If keeping that tile on the top of tub, then it might be an issue. you may just want to keep the scroll piece under the window. that's up to you. all depends how far you want to go. if you remove the scroll, you could do a little wood shelf across, below the window, for plants or orchids. as for the mirrors w/the lights in them, they're all over. just google 'vanity mirrors w/lights', or vanity mirrors w/medicine cab" . they are a bit pricey though. 600 and up for the very nice ones. Robern medicine cabinets are a well known name. if you want a taller medicine cab on the side, you will have to have the recessed portion of the wall made taller. as for the tiling portion, yes, just the front wall,,,you would paint on the side portion. I really like this look for your room. you don't have to do MOP tile, it was just a suggestion. there are tons of beautiful tiles you could use. If you did more of an ivory or subtle countertop that plays well w/your tile floor, then you could have more options to play w/some tile. The sconces pictured here are also nice, but there are many other types you could use as well. Don't want to bother w/sconces? then ditch your mirror and buy a backlit, or complete edge lit mirror like this one. you could still do your tiling like shown here. These are also very flattering. this countertop is limestone, below, and is more of a neutral, greige color. i would keep your ceiling dark, like you have it,,maybe do the walls a lighter shade...all depends what you pick for the vanity and tile. Having the mirror cut down isn't expensive. hopefully they can get it off the wall w/o breaking it. doing the tile around the mirror defines that area and gives it so much more appeal.

You don't bring home 10 cans of samples. You use the paint chips as your starting point. What type of white are you looking for? All whites are a tint (very light version) of a primary hue, so are you wanting a yellow/red/blue/green/orange/purple tinted white? What orientation is your room--north/south/east/west? What is on the floor and what color--tile/wood/carpet? What is outside the windows--green trees/another building/a blue pool? All of these factors will affect the appearance of the color you paint the walls. You could start with some of the most popular whites--I use Benjamin Moore paint and would recommend White Dove, Cotton Balls, Chantilly Lace, Simply White, Decorator White, Linen White, Ivory Cloud and Ivory White. See if you can get a large paper sample from the paint store (they are available to designers and I'm sure the paint store can order them for you) and narrow it down to 2 or 3. Then get a very small paint can of the 2 or 3 you like best and paint a large piece of poster board with 2 coats of paint. Then view the results in your room at different times of day and evening on the 4 walls. If you still can't decide, consider hiring a color consultant for an hour or two to help you.