New Paint in the Bathroom

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, My parents have the best kids. (Or in this case, kid. Joe gets no credit for this one.) I painted the downstairs bathroom for my mom yesterday.

(Ignore the weird ceiling line due to bad photo compositing.)

The existing state was a previous paint job I did for her...pale warm gray on the bottom half with the same colored vertical stripes above a mid-horizontal border of white. The stripes were done with a small roller and I kept the raggedy edges for a casual hand-drawn look.

Recently they got a new black vanity in the bathroom and we wanted to freshen up the look. We chose a medium charcoal gray (True Value's "Undeniable" #36D5).

After I painted the medicine cabinet and the bottom wall in the dark gray, the top portion seemed to be crying out for a touch of the dark as well. I did a free-hand vertical line in the center of each pale gray stripe, varying the pressure on the brush to create a thin-thick rough-edged effect.

I added a horizontal wiggly line across the bottom of the top stripes to it all together. At that point the hard edge of the charcoal gray against the white border seemed too harsh. I tried to use the hand-drawn technique on the edge of the gray, but that just looked messy. I finally decided to make a wiggly line in the paler gray to soften the break between the gray and white and that was the perfect final touch.