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Are you trying to incorporate the beauty of Greece into your home? As a travel lover myself, I certainly understand that desire. In fact, my husband and I recently completed a lengthy DIY bathroom renovation, where we created our perfect Greece inspired bathroom.
The funny thing is, we didn’t go into our reno with a Greece theme as the plan. All we initially knew was that we wanted a claw foot tub, and most other ideas came later. I believe our Greece inspired bathroom was actually the product of my subconscious, as Aaron and I had recently booked flights to Greece.
Inspiration is awesome like that – you never really know when and where it will hit. It led us down the path to our dream bathroom, and we couldn’t be happier with it. I’m now feeling the Greece wanderlust more than ever, so below I’m sharing how you can create your own beautiful space.
How We Created the Greece Inspired Bathroom of Our Dreams
Our bathroom is a happy space now, but it didn’t start out that way. Aaron and I wanted to do a total tear-out since the moment we moved in. Some friends even openly expressed their disdain with our old bathroom (gotta love brutal honesty).
However, in the first year of living in our house, the priority was redoing the kitchen. It would be another three years before we even touched the bathroom. That said, slow and steady wins the race, and I’ve enjoyed taking our time with these improvements.
The Tear-Out
Let’s get the ugly *cough* I mean original, photos out of the way first. I never loved the dark purple color that existed in the bathroom when we moved it. It would have been easy to paint, but knowing we wanted to overhaul the entire bathroom, we left it as it was.
We spent three and a half years with the dark color, mold stains that wouldn’t wipe off, and a hodgepodge of fixtures. One time I even found a small mushroom growing near the tub! You could imagine how happy we were when demo day finally came.
Ripping everything out felt amazing. Of course, we then had the arduous task of putting it all back together, and when I say “we” I mostly mean my husband. I came up with a lot of the ideas and painted, but he did most of the manual labor.
While the demo took a day, everything else lasted for over a month. It was so worth it, but I’m not sure Aaron will ever look at tile the same way again.
Choosing Greece Inspired Colors
As mentioned above, a claw foot tub was one of our only ideas at the beginning of the project. We also knew we wanted small hexagonal tile on the floor and an overall lighter look, but virtually everything else was a toss up. We love that our house was built in 1913, so we try to maintain a vintage touch in most rooms.
Our cast iron clawfoot tub was an online order from Vintage Tub & Bath, and came with chrome fixtures. Any other color would have been an upcharge, so chrome was our choice by default. We kept the chrome theme for the towel rack, sink faucet, etc.
Next, we picked out our Moroccan Blue tile during a short browse at Lowe’s. The blue and white colors brought to mind the blue-domed roofs of Santorini, and the Greece theme took off from there.
In a photo of the hotel we booked in Santorini, I had fallen in love with the warm shades of the buildings during sunset against the deep blue Aegean Sea. We sorted through dozens of swatches from Sherwin-Williams, until finally deciding on Linen for our wall color.
This subdued shade was perfect and didn’t distract from our beautiful blue tile. I also loved how the shiny silver of the chrome popped against it.
We kept every other color simple, going with white for the toilet, subway tile, and marble sink. This helped the bathroom maintain a light, airy feel.
Greece Inspired Bathroom Accessories
Once we picked out the color scheme for our bathroom, the momentum only grew for our Greece inspired theme. In fact, I already had a few decor items in mind that I’d been eyeing up at Anthropologie.
First there was the Grecian Bust Pot, which I’d wanted for a while, but didn’t have a great place in mind for it. Now I knew it would fit perfectly in our bathroom.
I also couldn’t resist buying a Capri Blue candle. Now, I know Capri is in Italy, but there’s no denying the blue of that candle still brings Greece vibes. Plus, it smells amazing!
Finally, we found our soap dispenser and toothbrush holder at Target, and largely kept things simple. Each has a subtle pattern carved into the white to keep things from getting too boring.
Finding Matching Linens
Yes, we picked out our accessories before we even had towels or rugs. By this point we had a pretty strong blue and white theme going, and had already found a shower curtain at Target. Therefore, anything else we bought had to match what was already in the bathroom.
This proved trickier than I thought, so I brought home three different rugs from Target to see if any of them would fit. Funny story – none of them did. We did keep one as a backup, since it was a neutral cream color that felt good on the feet.
Thankfully, World Market was there to save the day. We’ve had the best luck with them when it comes to hunting down furnishings to match the very specific ideas I often get in my head.
We ended up finding towels and rugs in blue colors and patterns that complimented the existing ones in our bathroom. At this point, besides my desire to eventually add some artwork to the walls, our work was otherwise complete.
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There you have it – the complete blueprint to our Greece inspired bathroom. Every time I enter, I get major Greece vibes and feel like I’m in my happy place. It’s like having a little retreat without having to leave the house.
If you also are dreaming of whitewashed buildings and blue-domed roofs, I hope our bathroom design inspires you to add a little Greece to your home.
