1950's Pink Bathroom Makeover

Time Travel

• Embrace the pink tile and fixtures, then shift the attention to the walls. Paint or wallpaper an Asian watercolor mural on all walls above the tile line. The softly brushed mountains, bamboo, rivers, small houses and other details of the art are distracting. Covering all but the makeup mirror light in rose colored shades will cast a flattering rosy glow that makes your bathroom seem like a throwback to the early 20th century. Pick up a few of the wall art's muted colors in your towels, and stencil a filigree border in frosted white or very thin black on the inside rim of an old medicine cabinet mirror.

Buttercream

• Turn the candy-sweet bathroom into a more palatable confection with paint. Cover up the standard white walls with a pale whipped-butter-colored paint, like buttercream icing. The pale yellow against the pink tile is pretty and playful without being cloying. Hunt for a floor mat or small area rug with cartoon ice cream cones or cupcakes in the design. Use deeper topaz accessories for a soap dish, plastic cup, even toothbrushes. Choose a yellow and white striped curtain for the shower and create an element of surprise with apple green bath towels to keep things from getting boring.

Flesh Pink

• Get a bit bawdy with your pink tiled bathroom and go for elegant bordello. Paint the upper walls seashell pink; that's the crayon sometimes labeled "flesh" in your big, expanded box of colors. Add frosted glass wall sconces with curly gilt bases and a plush bath rug in a pinkish Merlot. Hang some framed posters of Rubenesque nudes on the walls and use the same Merlot velvet for a shower curtain. This bathroom could handle a large, gold-framed mirror and a wastebasket stamped with some type from fin de siècle Paris. A crystal and gilt chandelier wouldn't be out of place if you've got room.

Miami Beach

• When you've got Art Deco Miami Beach, go for it. Paint the upper walls warm white and hang framed black and white blown-up photos of Miami Beach bathing beauties, complete with rubber bathing caps. Attach a seashell or dolphin towel hook to the back of the door and hang a white terrycloth robe there. A shiny black plastic waste basket and a black vase on the toilet tank with a single spray of white or purple orchids are de rigueur. The shower curtain can be white vinyl with scribbled outlines of seashells all over. Stick an old-fashioned tourist decal---palm trees, a Miami Beach sign or an alligator--on the mirror over the sink. Find an open corner to park a bright pink yard flamingo and you have a '50s bathroom to beat a South Beach boutique hotel.