Decorating in Shades of Dirt

On two separate occasions I have gotten a brand new bathtub as part of remodeling a bathroom. In both instances, I swore that I would be diligent about scrubbing the bathtub on a regular basis to preserve its pristine whiteness.

The new tub as it was being installed

As I was scrubbing tub #2, which was installed almost 2 years ago, I had time to contemplate my cleaning abilities.  I can state unequivocally that I am incapable of keeping a bathtub in pristine condition.  I'd blame my family but honestly, I am the primary bathtub cleaner around here so this is primarily due to my slothfulness.

I  love home decorating but my house needs a special type of decorating!  Based on the color of the grime in my tub, I should probably get all my bathroom fixtures in a light grey/beige color.  Fancy-schmancy designers have taken to calling this color greige.  My family's dirt tends to be in the range of the lightest colors on these paint chips.  Not only would I be disguising our dirt, I'd also be trendy!

Popular greige options
from https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/53/f0/c6/53f0c69276f366c4b7274949743e0da3.jpg

As I continued scrubbing, I realized that making decorating choices based on the color of our dirt is an option that works well in other areas of my home.

Take the hallway for instance.  There is a St. Bernard sized patch on the wall right above the baseboard that is a warm beige versus the rest of the white walls, courtesy of my St. Bernard.  She is pained whenever we are separated by the door and makes it a habit to lie outside of whatever door I am behind.  This shade of beige would actually be quite lovely and I am thinking of having my husband repaint the hall right before we put in new flooring.

Yes, our flooring does need to be replaced.  When we moved into a house with pristine white carpeting and promptly got a St. Bernard.  Did I mention we did that in January, in the rainy Pacific Northwest?  Yeah, our carpet was toast.  We've just been waiting until it got so gross we couldn't stand it anymore.  Incidentally, that has given us enough time to save up to pay for the new flooring.  I am hoping that we will be able to do that this spring, because parts of the carpet are now approaching shades of dark greige.

I have also chosen the color of this new flooring based on our dirt.  This is more of a dark brown shade due to tracking dried pine needles and bits of mud.  I've already replaced the flooring in two bathrooms with this color scheme.  Let me just say that this does an excellent job of disguising debris.  Even the St. Bernard hair.  Her white hair is kind of translucent, so until there is so much on the floor that it starts to clump, it works excellently!

I was feeling pretty happy with my plan until I started on the bathroom ceiling.  I ran into a bit of a snag in my decorating plan to hide all traces of dirt.  The climate of the Pacific Northwest facilitates lush plant growth, including mold and mildew.  Which is why I was scrubbing the mold off of my ceiling.  In order to disguise that little problem, I'd have to paint my ceiling black.  I can't say that I would like a black ceiling.  And my husband had the nerve to point out that unchecked mold growth on ceiling might pose a health problem.

Ahh...guess I am just going to have to deal with the mess the old fashioned way.