A Touch of Terror to a Touch of Hollywood

Even though I suffer from renovationism, there is some logic and order to the compulsion. We have always plotted our projects with the public rooms as the priority, then moving to the private rooms. We did that in this house too. One of the scarier rooms in the house was the powder room on the first floor. It is the only bathroom on the first floor and clearly the one any guests would use. This is what we started with:

Yes, the floor is pink. And, the ceiling is bright pink.

We did not know the terror that lied beneath that wallpaper. When we took off the rattan towel bar and toilet paper holder we found that holes that were left by the prior ceramic versions. Then, the vanity counter top slid into a large slot in the wall and the wallpaper was just loosely tucked in.

It seems we didn't photograph much of the destruction stage. Perhaps is was just upsetting. Or, it might have been that this room is so small it is difficult to photograph. Here are a couple showing all the drywall patching we had to do in there.

Of course any time you have a cabinet vanity it is a 100% certainty that your pipes are not centered on where you will want that pedestal sink. The patches on the left were to fix the slot from the prior vanity countertop and the ceramic towel bar. At least the wallpaper came off easy in here, but it did reveal those nasty surprises.

This wall was not yet patched. That hole emerged when I peeled off the wallpaper.

Powder rooms are a great place for some design fun. This room is not meant for heavy duty use like a full bath and is also primarily used by guests. I thought I'd try a new palate for me and decided on what I ultimately felt was a very Old Hollywood feel.

We like pedestal sinks in powder rooms because of their great look. I also wanted to put in a fun, but classic, floor to replace the pink tiles. Then, I wanted to have some fun with the ceiling and lighting.

This is the floor in progress. The main tile is travertine, classic, but it is in planks like hardwood floor and set in that same type of random pattern. Then, for splash, I put in little strips of mosaic that consisted of travertine, clear glass, and frosted glass. Just enough fun without being too busy or too gaudy.

Here is the finished room.

You can see a bit of the ceiling in the photo above. There wasn't enough room for the standard crown molding we were installing in the rest of the house due to the vent fan placement. So, I got this tip from the rep at Ethan Allen when I was buying the dining room wallpaper for that ceiling. I put picture rail a few inches down from the ceiling and did the metallic treatment all the way through to that picture rail. The silver paint was put on in a swirling brush stroke style to look like brushed aluminum. Made a great tray ceiling.

You can see the funky little chandelier we put in. I had no idea it would create those light patterns on the wall. Bonus! With the slate purple wall color it looks like water. You can also see better in this photo that we have a trough style faucet. Another unique touch for this room.

We continued the theme of the tall baseboard and the painted six-panel doors. We think this is a fun room for guests and enjoy it ourselves as well.

My next post will be about the upstairs full bath. It is also a guest bath, so we wanted to get that one done early on.