Bertch Monsoon Bathroom Vanity Finish

The color is a medium blue with enough gray in it to stay calm, like faded denim or a slate roof after rain. It sits squarely in the middle of the value range, darker than Harbor by a long way and lighter than Cobalt by more. There is no green in it, which is what separates it from Agave, and no purple. The paint is opaque, so the face reads as one flat, even plane with nothing showing through.

Mid-value blues are the steadiest under bathroom lighting. Warm bulbs over a mirror soften Monsoon and bring out the gray; cool daylight brightens the blue and it reads a little more saturated. Either way it stays recognizably blue, which is not true of the gray-greens in this range. In a room with one window the near and far ends of a long vanity will differ slightly, though far less than they would on a deep color.

The usual guesses are denim, French blue, slate and chambray, and all of them land close. It is sometimes taken for a navy in a photograph, but in person the gap is wide, since Monsoon is much lighter and grayer than Cobalt. The surface is dead even with a low satin sheen and no texture beyond the paint itself. There is no glaze anywhere, so nothing darkens at an edge or settles in a corner.

Monsoon is one of Bertch’s painted colors, offered on the Classic and Furniture series. Classic is Bertch’s framed series, built in solid hardwood and offered in more door styles and finishes than any other — stains, painted colors and hand-applied glazes across eight wood species.

Bertch builds these on 3/4" solid hardwood door frames with raised or flat panels, 5/8" solid hardwood drawer boxes dovetailed front and back, and plywood floors, backs and shelves with a natural birch veneer interior. Undermount soft-close drawer glides and concealed soft-close hinges come standard.

Every Bertch vanity is built to order in Waterloo, Iowa: configurations, storage solutions, tops and finishes are selected per project, nothing is off-the-shelf. Bertch warrants its products to be free from defects in material or workmanship for as long as they are owned by the original purchaser.

Monsoon is a confident powder room color that does not shrink the room, which is a rare combination. It also holds up well in a primary bath, where it gives a wall of white tile something to answer. Floating, it reads modern and a little graphic; freestanding on legs, it reads like a painted antique. In a small windowless bathroom it works where the deeper blues do not, because it still gives light back.

Upkeep sits in the forgiving middle. It does not show toothpaste the way white does, or dust the way a near-black does, and dried water spots are faint rather than obvious. The usual problem areas are around the pulls and along the top edges of the drawer fronts. Among the Classic styles it suits Craftwood for a plainer bathroom and Alden or Harper where a little detail helps; Centennial in Monsoon reads traditional in a good way.