Powder Room Remodeled & Revealed!

The powder room is finished!   We dragged our feet to start this remodel. The kitchen took much longer than we expected, and we needed a break!

The New Year gave us a zest to finish the project in the powder room and the master bath, which is still in progress.
 

A glass and brass shower stood where the tall cabinet does now.  My husband ripped it out, while I was out of town.  In thirteen years, I think it was used once!  The only bedroom upstairs is the master, and it has a shower.  I have no idea what the intent was by the previous owners!  I'm just glad it is gone.

I hung a shower curtain over the shower at one time to hide it, but that made it worse! We probably would have lived with the shower much longer, had we not needed to refinish the floors.   

Most of the accessories I buy and display conjure memories or remind me of loved ones. I have several old pharmacy bottles and scales collected from my college days, when I had to mix and  weigh chemicals. The little pewter sign on the large built-in cabinet is of a German apothecary, which my parents bought while traveling. I didn't love being in the dungeon of a pharmacy, but it was hard work with long hours, and these things remind me of it.

My grandmother was an elementary school teacher, so the old slate board reminds me of her. I have a picture of her teaching fourth grade during the 1930's, which hung in this space before.  I can't remember where I stored it!

Green is my favorite color, but I wanted to keep the space light. I chose Horizon Gray by Benjamin Moore and my husband painted the space after he tore out the old cabinets. It is a nice greenish-gray color.  

We set a budget for the space, but to keep the costs down, I pulled things from around the house to decorate the space.  I found the lights on sale and at a consignment store.  I pulled the mirror from my son's bathroom.

The vanity is a marble carrera remnant.  We didn't need a big slab, so I called several fabricators to find a small piece left over from another project.  This took time to find, but was certainly cost effective.

The black and white photo above the toilet is a reminder of family vacations.

I moved the small bamboo table from my bedroom to the powder room to display books and memorabilia.  The tattered rug has seen every corner of my house.  I'm undecided if it will stay.

 I love the picture of my dad on the pony.  If you look closely, he has on shoes just like the ones displayed here.  I love children's vintage shoes, and placed a small vase inside one of them to hold some flowers.

The small painting is of a scene in Charleston, SC, where we lived for almost ten years.  My husband and I used to walk through the marsh carrying an old canoe over our heads.  By the time we reached the creek, we were covered in muck.  The dirty, sticky mud is difficult to wash off, but it was so worth it.  The Lowcountry is breathtaking with its Spanish moss-dripped oak trees and wildlife, and I love anything that reminds me of it!

Back to the bathroom...
I wrapped a roll of toilet paper in an old sewing pattern and made a paper flower from the same paper.  Isn't the disguise so much better?  Not that I don't have a huge cabinet to store extra rolls, but who wants to search, right?  They make so many pretty tissue papers for wrapping, you could use anything to mask the roll!

This old wooden stirrup holds extra towels for guests.  The patina is beautiful, and it just seems to shout a story of times gone by.  In the picture of my dad and the pony, his foot rests on one just like it.

 My daughter loves horses, so I have started a collection of old equestrian things for her. 

I found the chandelier at a consignment store.  It wasn't priced, so I offered twenty dollars and the clerk took it!

My husband had to rewire it.

 I changed the gold chain to a silver one and painted it with some gray paint to dull it.

 

Except for the bottom drawer, these 'drawers' are actually a cabinet door.  Drawers weren't practical with the positioning of the sink, so the builder made drawer fronts on the door.

 

I wanted the hardware to look vintage to mimic old Scandinavian furniture.  The drawer knobs and pulls are a dark rubbed brass.

To make the sign, I used a chalk marker.  Markers are so much easier to use, but I don't like the non-chalk appearance!  I marked my line, wrote out the reminder to my children, and used a paper towel to dab off some of the paint.

 

I found the cast iron sheep at a thrift store.

 

Before:

I didn't photograph the brass-glass shower, before Rob tore it out, but here is the hole it left! Can you picture it?



 

When we moved here, we took down the striped red and green wallpaper and painted the room Benjamin Moore's Monroe Bisque.

Monroe Bisque is what most of our upstairs is painted, so I wanted something different for the powder room.  Here are a few shades of green that we tried, before settling on the Horizon Gray (bottom left.)


The floors were so faded. We really wanted to preserve the floors, since they were salvaged from an old hunting lodge in Blackstock, SC and are full of old knots and worm holes. The protective varnish had worn down and the floors were bare in some places. After fifteen years, and the kitchen leak, it was time to strip them.  Down the short hall to the left is the powder room. 

These were the cabinets in our bathroom.  I took this picture when they sat on our lawn.  I missed my photo op when Rob decided to tackle the room by himself.  The cabinets were of poor quality and the paint had chipped or worn in many places.  The door wouldn't close and it was simply time for the brass knobs to go.

The new vanity was placed back in the same spot.  The chipped and dated brass fixture was replaced with brushed chrome sconces.  My husband also replaced the door knobs upstairs from the brass ones that are all over the house.

We wrestled with custom built cabinets verses pre-fab, but couldn't come up with a good solution for the big hole left by the shower.  We thought about buying a large piece of furniture for the hole.  We also thought about closing it with a wall, leaving the dead space behind.  Ultimately, we decided to have a cabinet built to maximize the space.

The inexpensive chandelier replaced this crystal and brass semi-flush light. 

To design both the cabinet and the vanity, I looked at pictures from the web. I took these to the cabinet maker to come up with a design:

houzz.com



The Swedish Furniture



Terrain


 

Thank you for stopping by to see the powder room!

 

 

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