ANYTHING GOES THURSDAY: Powder Room Redo

I want to thank everyone for all of the nice e-mails I've gotten wishing us happiness in our new home!  It really means a lot.  A few of you also asked to see some before and after pictures so over the next few weeks, I'll share some of my favorite projects from the remodel.  Let me make one thing clear from the get-go - we are so not do-it-yourselfers!  There are a few things here and there that we took on but for the most part, we used contractors to make our vision become a reality.  That being said, we did pick out all of the design elements ourselves so while we may not be handy, I like to think we have good taste ;).

Up first - the first floor powder room.  When you walk in our front door, you're greeted by a staircase and off to the left, our powder room.  I knew that the door to the bathroom would always end up being open, so I really wanted to make the space to make a statement.  When we bought the house, it said blah and boring.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the walls were a greenish beige I think would be best described as watered down pea soup.  (I swear the previous owners of our house bought all of the paint on sale because the color palette was nauseating.)

The pedestal sink was fine (we actually ended up moving it into our guest bathroom) but didn't offer any storage (notice the spare roll of toilet paper on top of the toilet) and the light fixture?  Well, I'll just leave it as not being my style.

From the moment I saw the powered room, I knew I wanted to wallpaper it, and I used this as my inspiration.

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You may remember I posted back in July asking for opinions on the patterns I was considering, and after a lot of debate, I finally went with this trellis design called Dolce Vita from the Grata collection by Antonia Vella for York (got all that?).

After choosing the paper, I struggled over which color to go with.  The pink was too girly so I thought the best bet was either the navy or the kelly green, but after seeing the swatches, my husband voted for the coral.

I was shocked but happy - it was exactly the pop of color I was hoping for!  And little did I know then that Pantone was going to name Tangerine Tango the color of 2012.

We were so ahead of the trend!  So up went the coral paper and in went the new fixtures, and when you walk into our house now, here's what you see.

I love love love it!  The new sink has just enough storage in the drawer and the new light fixture is a lot more elegant.  You may also notice that the floors are darker - we re-stained all of the wood floors in the house, which made a huge impact.

My one DIY project for the powder room was the navy lacquer bamboo mirror.  I bought it at Goodwill for $30 and it originally looked like this.

After $12 worth of primer and spray paint....

I think it's perfect for the space.  (Plus blue and orange are the colors of my alma mater.  Go 'Cuse!)

There are still a few things I want to do in there - I have a great idea for hand towels and some wall art I want to make for the blank wall facing the toilet - but in the meantime, I smile every time I use the power room.  When you're surrounded by this:

How could you not?

Next week - how some tile and a whole lot of paint turned our kitchen from drab to fab.

Do you have a space that you're hoping to spruce up?  Follow me on Pinterest for lots of great inspiration.  You can also find most of my powder room ideas on my Beautiful Bathrooms board HERE.

Linking up to:

ANYTHING GOES THURSDAY: Wondering About Wallpaper

It's ANYTHING GOES THURSDAY again and after 20 Ways To Make S'Mores and 20 More Ways to Make S'mores, I thought another s'mores round up might be a little much, but if you want to see some more great s'mores ideas, like these S'mores Rice Krispie Treats:

Be sure to visit my More S'mores Board on Pinterest.

I posted on Tuesday about the Island Ikat paper from Thibault that I'm considering for our powder room.

A bunch of you e-mailed me to say how much you liked it, but I'm not 100% sold yet so I thought I'd share the other options I'm considering to see which you all like best.  Here's the powder room now:

Ignore the light fixture and mirror - they're both being replaced.

Pretty standard stuff, right?

Here's the deal.  The powder room is the only bathroom on the main floor of our new house, so it's the one all of our guests will use and will also get a lot of use from us too.  The other thing about this space is that it's close to the front door so the wallpaper will be one of the first things people see when they walk in so I want it to pop.  A poppy bathroom.  Bet you don't hear that very often, huh?

So back to the Ikat wallpaper.  I think it's so purdy.

But while I love it now, I'm wondering if it will seem too trendy in a year or two.  Another option I'm considering is this gorgeous trellis design from York.

And as much as I like the pink, I'd probably go for this kelly green version instead.

It reminds me a lot of Kelly Wearstler's Imperial Trellis pattern, which looks so fab in this bathroom.

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But again, I wonder if the trellis will seem too trendy down the line.

I'm also really drawn to this Thibault paper called English Crewel.

I think it's more classic and even though it's a little more feminine, pairing it with Graham & Brown's beadboard paper might lessen the girliness.

What is beadboard wallpaper you ask?  It's an easy to apply and totally economical version of beadboard that Rhoda from Southern Hospitality has me totally into!  I think it would look terrific on the bottom half of the powder room walls with one of the other papers above it.

If I go with the half beadboard, this graphic fauna print from Jane Churchill might be fun.

So if you were me, which would you choose?  And would you go with the beadboard too or just the patterned paper?  Too many decisions!

For more of my home decor inspirations, check out my boards on Pinterest.