We made it! We made it to the big reveal day of the One Room Challenge. My small 3×8 powder room is all decked out and is no longer a sad, builder basic vanilla box
The One Room Challenge is a twice a year event that Linda Weinstein of Calling It Home founded back in 2011. 2o main participants are chosen to makeover a room in just 6 weeks and blog about the progress each week. They get the awesome opportunity to work with some great product sponsors to help them with products to complete their spaces. The media sponsor, Better Homes and Gardens will also be featuring some of the great spaces. Guests participants like myself are invited to join in for fun, and I must be having a ton of fun (or a glutton for punishment, haha) since this is my 6th time participating. I just love the ORC and that’s the reason I have done it as many times as I have.
My powder room was one of the last rooms in my home to get a makeover (the bedroom suite is next). Just like every other vanilla space in this builder basic home I bought back in March, I have been slowly adding some really custom and luxurious touches to make it my own.
Here is what the powder room looked like before.
As you can see, nothing special. It had everything you need to handle your business in there. I did love the window in there and I later added the shutter when we moved in.
Powder rooms for me are always a great way to add some luxury to your home. Because it is such a small space, it is ok to go bold, and do the super dramatic things that you perhaps don’t want to do in the rest of your home. I love a powder room with personality!
I have been longing to use the color blush for a while now, and the powder room was just the place for that. I also love a wall of moldings – I do it every chance I get. This time I decided to go for a bit more details in the molding to give the room a Parisian apartment feel.
The floor that I choose for the entire lower level of my home was the inspiration for the powder room’s loose Parisian theme. Although the floor is a porcelain tile, it looks and feels like parquet wood flooring. Parquet floors always felt very French to me, especially when they show signs of aging.
I brought in my carpenter to trim out the walls with thin plywood and then added the molding detailing on all the walls, and even the ceiling. The space is only 3×8 with 8 foot ceilings, so the size helped to reduce the cost of all that detailed work. I chose Benjamin Moore Pleasant Pink for the wall color in a low luster finish.
How yummy is that pink?
The statueritto marble on the vanity was a remnant piece I bought and had fabricated by my stone fabricators. I just love the movement of the veining, and it definitely adds a luxurious feel to the room. I went with wall mounted faucets because the countertop was just so small at only 35″wide by 21″ deep. I also did the fancy brass p-trap drain pipes as an added design feature. Even though drain pipes are functional and utilitarian; it doesn’t mean they can’t look intentional and well designed.
The wood shelf of the vanity was added by my carpenter with reclaimed wood he had on hand. I love the rustic wood against the refined marble. It was a last minute dash to get finished, and the walnut slab that I really wanted didn’t happen. I did manage to save significantly by going with this option. No complaints here.
Even though there is a window in the bathroom, it is actually on the front of the house, so the window has to remain closed. That meant that the room was always dark. I brought in these amazing pendants that flank the beautiful gold mirror, and even added a ceiling fixture. Now there is plenty of great lighting, and no ugly, age-adding shadows when you look in the mirror 🙂
Did you notice the bold zebra art? of course! You can’t miss it. It was a purchase from a street artist in Soho NY, and I had it framed in the very ornate frame as a nod to the French feel I was after. I love the juxtaposition of the ornate frame with the whimsy of the zebra canvas. For me, color has to be snuck into a room somehow, and art is a great way to do that.
Ok, can we have a moment to just talk about my gorgeous Botswana linen fabric. I saw this fabric a few months ago, and had to have it. I had my workroom create this functional roman shade using this fun fabric. I feel that some fabric was needed to soften the room, since there wasn’t an opportunity to do a lot of styling.
The toilet is new too. I went with one that had the integrated skirting. So much easier for cleaning!
A powder room too should have great art to be enjoyed by its users. This small space boasts two large scale art pieces.
Every room can benefit from a bit of styling, and even though this a powder room and super small, I still brought in as much as I could.
The fresh orange tulips adds such a bold look to the room, especially against the blush of the walls
Overall, I am so pleased with the way this small space turned out. It is so much fun to walk in there now. All the hiccups along the way were so well worth it! I now call it the best seat in the house 🙂
Thanks to Colleen Scott, my awesome photographer, for getting this done for me. I still don’t know how she managed to get into such a small space to take such great shots.
Thanks for following along these past 6 weeks. If you missed any of the ORC fun, please head on over to week 5 where you will also be linked back to weeks 1 through 4. You will see all the ups and downs and twists and turns with this makeover.
If you are in need of a bold, modern and eclectic powder room makeover, book a consultation and we can help
Wishing You Beauty And Inspiration!
Veronica
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