Some friends of mine recently moved into a historic house in Virginia, and they have a powder room on their main floor that’s a blank slate. The powder room opens into a den that has lots of windows to their gorgeous, lush backyard. They’ll use this bathroom quite a bit, I imagine, since one of them will create an office in that den, and this is the only bathroom on the main floor.
Of course, I got to thinking . . . what bathroom style would I recommend for them? I figure all of the time I spend reading design blogs has got to be useful to someone! After browsing some of my favorite sites, I came up with my all-time favorite powder rooms. Most of these rooms don’t have windows–like my friends’ powder room–and they are all small spaces that make a big impact!
My absolute favorite powder room on the internet is the one pictured below from A Thoughtful Place. I love the moody color, the contrast between the tile floor and the fluted wood vanity, and the quirky cocktail photo.
I also love this muted pink bathroom by Yellow Brick Home. They used pink porcelain tile on the wall, laid vertically, and the red ceiling light is so sweet.
For something a little more retro, how about the fun, pink bathroom pictured below, also by Yellow Brick Home? I’ve seen some vintage sinks like this online.
But as much as I love these rooms, I also have to consider my friends’ house. Their powder room already has beautiful wood floors, and the white sink and white toilet are in working order. How could they spice up the room without changing the fixtures or the flooring?
The easiest way to make this space pop would be to add saturated color to the walls and ceiling. I would love to see them add some kind of architectural detail to the lower part of the walls and apply wallpaper to the upper part (and maybe to the ceiling, too!). In terms of precise measurements, I’d aim for the architectural detail to cover about 3/5 of the wall and the wallpaper to cover the remaining 2/5.
What do you think of this example from Style by Emily Henderson?
You could use endless combinations of paint and wallpaper for this project! I love Rifle Paper and Hygge & West, so I’d start there for inspiration. If you’re on Instagram, @simplee.diy has quite a few wallpaper-paint pairings on her page (see an example below).
If it were up to me, I’d want the room to feel like a jewel box. I think I’d choose this gorgeous paper from Rifle Paper Co. and use dark blue or dark green paint. Wouldn’t that be lovely? And I wouldn’t leave the ceiling white — I’d either paint it a lighter color from the wallpaper (like a lighter blue) or I’d add wallpaper the ceiling.
What would you do with this blank canvas? So many possibilities!
Leave a Reply