Okay, when I bought this place, I didn’t notice what color some of the rooms were. Then, like a week after I moved in, I woke up one morning and realized that the walls in the kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom were key lime green (Yes, I know that real key limes aren’t green, but since most “key lime” pies aren’t made with real key limes, but ordinary ones, and thus are a weird green color which happens to match the walls in my place, I’m calling it that.)! Yeech! I hate it, and want to change the color of at least the bathroom, but I have no idea what would be a good complimentary color to match the rest of the room. The sink counter is a dark marble green, the cabinets and doors are rosewood (I think, I don’t remember the name of the color, but its pretty close to what’s commonly referred to as “flesh tone” [i.e. caucasian]), the sink, shower, and toilet are the same color, and the floor is white vinyl with rosewood petals evenly spaced in it. I don’t have the money to replace the cabinets or anything like that. I’ve just got enough money to paint the walls something else. Anybody got some suggestions?
I would go with plain old white. If it doesn’t work, it’s easy to paint over, but it basically goes with everything.
Whatver you do don’t paint it PINK!!!
Our bathroom is pink – the color it was when we bought it – and we can’t stand it.
I must respectfully have a different opinion than CalMeacham, but I love my pink bathroom. I bought every accessory in pink to match the bathroom. Light looks wonderful when reflected off of nothing but pink, IMHO.
Of course, with your bathroom, I’d go with white. Doesn’t clash with much of anything!
My master bedroom is pink. It was that way when we moved in. It’s horrible. White usually makes a room look bigger. How about white and a good trim color? Just finished repainting the computer room. White with gray trim and rose accents.
The Pepto-Bismol pink bathroom syndrome! Know it well.
But not all pinks are created equal. Sounds like the colors you’re working around are rosewood/flesh and dark green from the marble sink. I’d suggest a soft sandy/beige color with just a tinge of pink for the walls–a deeper tone of the rosewood, basically. I don’t know what it’s called. (Paint color names are always hilariously baroque anyway.)
I used it in my spare bathroom. It’s pretty neutral so you can pretty much go any direction you want with towels, e.g dark green, cream, whatever. Several problems with stark white: it’s very unforgiving about showing dirt and reflecting pitiless light on your wincing, bleary morning face.
FWIW I did a two-color rag roll w/ cream base and a sandy lacquer top; oil based. Old house, uneven walls, small area and I figured it couldn’t look worse than it did before. (Institutional mold-green walls. ::shudders:
It was fun in a finger-painting way. Came out great: looks kinda subtlely marbley, hid the flaws in the walls and it washes down in nothing flat. Took one day to do.
Veb
If you can get away with it with the colours currently in the bathroom, I would suggest a very light blue. I painted a small bathroom blue in my old house, and the cool blue walls really work in an area associated with water. The light blue walls would look great with the dark green marble (giving sort of an underwater grotto feel, I would hope); maybe you could paint the cabinets dark green as well. I’m not sure about the pink parts of your decor. Best bet - get paint chips from a hardware store and see what doesn’t look gross.
You’re leaving the rest of the place green? You’re a stronger man than I, Tuck. Of course, I’m not a man, so that’s hardly a fair comparison, but that’s neither here nor there.
When I saw the thread title I was going to suggest “celery” but I see you’re trying to move away from green. I like the sandy, slightly pinkish white that Veb suggested. I think that will look quite nice. I also second taking some paint chips into the store if possible. Either that or bring home about 2000 of those little color sample dealies and hold them up against the wall while squinting with one eye closed to imagine what the entire wall would look like when painted that color.
I third Veb’s suggestion. The color I am thinking of is often called “linen.”
Eventually, I’m going to get around to painting the other rooms, but the bathroom’s going to be first as I’ve had to do a lot of reworking on it here of late (hot water heater blew out and flooded it 
). When I do the kitchen, I’m going to replace the floor as its the rippled vinyl which always looks dirty! I know the blue of which you speak, featherlou, as my other bathroom is painted that color, and I don’t want to have both bathrooms the same color. I’m not really interested in white, as one of the bedrooms (I’m using it as an “office”) is white as well. The linen color doesn’t sound too bad, my first car was about that color.
I’d get color swatches, but I’m just no good with those things. Unless I can see the whole place done in a color, I can’t tell if its a good match or not. (Like most males, I’m totally lost when it comes to these kinds of things. But hey! I can cook! That’s something, right?)
I don’t know why, but in my head bathrooms are supposed to be a nice, regular, good old fashioned BLUE. Not navy, not midnight, not blue violet, not anything crayola has named it. Just good, old fashoined blue.
I read that pink has a very calming, soothing effect on people, so I did our bathroom in bubblegum pink & it always had that effect. Course with a family like the one I have that was necessary.
Bathrooms get smaller with every tint shade away from white.
If you have easy to clean surfaces, go with the most brilliant white you can, and add color with bright towels, rug, or accessories.
If your surfaces are hard to clean, pick something that won’t show that much contrast, but will still be white.
What era are the bathroom fixtures from?
Oh, circa the late 1990s. 
I forgot to mention I live in a trailer. (Hey! Stop looking at me like that! Damn it! Do you have any idea of how much apartment rent is around here? The rent on an apt. half this size is double what I’m paying now!)
Are you considering psychological aspects or just aesthetic ones? According to Jung, colors have symbolic meanings to the psyche e.g.:
white = spirituality
red = anger
yellow = intuition
Sorry I can’t tell you more but those are the only 3 I remember.
Welcome to the boards, ejrn! (BTW, why the heck did you register to post to this thread? I’m touched, but I’d think you’d want to register to post to something more important.) Aesthetic aspects are really all I care about.
Thanks for the welcome, Tuckerfan. Actually, I’ve been scanning the boards for a couple of months now and even posted a few times under my son’s moniker. His info would pop up everytime I tried to post and I couldn’t figure out how to change it. He finally walked me thru it the other day.
Best of luck with your new decor.
One thing you might try if you’re even a little bit artsy is sponge painting. Pick a nice light background color (white, off-white, cream, pale pink, etc.) and then sponge-paint a slightly different color over it (cream background with slightly darker cream sponging, white with pale pink or pale pink with white, etc.)
I did my boring white bathroom in pale lavender with white and lighter lavender sponging, and I was pretty impressed with the way it turned out for the amount of effort (very little, really) that it took. The trick is to stay understated–you can always put on more paint if you don’t think it’s enough, but it’s harder to take some away.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with wanting affordable housing.
You will probably prime before you paint, right? Why not prime with a white shellac and see how that looks (warning: it will STINK until it dries (about 45 minutes.) The shellac will also help a little to waterproof the walls.
I assume that the lime green is reflected in the floor pattern. How would it look to add a trim line at waist level and either paint the bottom part with a color from the flooring, stipple or blotch with a color over white, or apply wallpaper?
I asked about the era because I went through a similar problem with our bathroom. It was built in 1949, and the tub surround was done in corn-yellow tile with a lime green tile border. In our case, white would have been too harsh, but a cream color worked great.