Powder Room

A couple of weeks before moving into the house, I had a sudden desire to add some charm to the powder bathroom. It is an itty bitty room with no window. As with most of the house, the original owners really didn’t do anything with it. Here is the only “before” photo I could find of the room. It was taken while the flooring was being removed:

Here is an "after" shot:

The room is so small that I am not able to snap a photo of the entire space. The room served its purpose but just seemed very plain to me. Plain textured walls, a toilet, and a sink. We kept the toilet and sink but changed the light fixture, mirror, and faucet. The mirror was a necessity because the existing one was too small for the space. The faucet was more of a want. I currently love faucets with cross-hatch handles and cute "hot" and "cold" buttons. 

While in the middle of this mini-renovation, I heard Nicole from Rehab Addict say that if there is one room you want to do and do well, it's the powder bath because that is the room all your guests will use. Made sense to me. Sadly, everything I selected cost more than what we were comfortable paying (this always happens!), but after some searching, we were able to find the light fixture, faucet, and mirror on sale or at a steep discount. Yay!

Since we were replacing the flooring on the entire first level, I decided to take the opportunity to skim coat the textured walls while there was just subfloor. Textured walls are my nemesis! It seems if I’m not sanding a cabinet door, I’m skim coating a wall. To do this, I used drywall compound and a magic trowel:

I applied about 4-5 coats of drywall compound with a roller and smoothed it with the trowel, lightly sanding in between each coat. The messiness of it all is the reason I chose to do it while the house was itself a mess and in a demo’d state.

I measured out each wall and eyeballed how high I wanted the board and batten to go. I then picked up the least expensive board I could find as well as some thicker MDF to use for the board and batten.

Using a miter saw & box, I cut each piece to size. Then using a brad nailer, I nailed each board to the wall. I purposely chose not to space each board evenly. Since the walls were small, I felt it made more sense to do a board at both ends and one in the middle of each wall.

I then primed and painted the boards and the bottom half of the wall. Then I caulked wherever I saw gaps. I held off attaching the thicker trim at the top, because I decided first to have wallpaper installed on the top half of the room. I have wanted to use wallpaper for a few years now, but doing a big room seemed too much. I still prefer the simplicity of paint, so I thought the small powder bath was the perfect place to start. The problem is, the wallpaper I finally chose was pretty pricey. Learning how to hang paper using expensive wallpaper didn’t seem like such a smart idea, so I found a reputable paper hanger. SO glad I did. Although it's just a small bathroom, it is so much nicer to walk into. It no longer has that plain, blah, little box feeling. With all the selected pieces put together, the room looks even better than I had hoped it would. I still have to decorate it, but that's the fun, less pressing part.

We debated extending the wood floor to the powder room. Who knows if we'll regret it, but for now, it makes the room look very nice in my opinion.

Best thing is, after months of patiently letting me wreak havoc in this space, my husband thinks the whole room turned out great!

Master Bath

One of the first projects I tackled in our new house about five months ago was the master bathroom. Here are a couple of "before" photos:

It is a nice but obnoxiously spacious bathroom (that I have to clean! *sad face*), but as usual not our style. Caleb wanted the room to look and feel like those we see in hotels and resorts: sleek white countertops with dark cabinets. However, to replace all the cabinetry was out of the question. Truly, this bathroom has more cabinets and drawers than any reasonable person could possibly need. It's really ridiculous. Even now, I refuse to use more than half of them simply out of principle.

I did some research and found a stain many said was the only one worth using:

 

So I began by sanding all the frames, cabinet doors, and drawers. Story of my life. After wiping them down, I applied three coats of stain and two coats of topcoat with my kids’ old socks (I knew there was a reason I saved them!). This took some patience. After the first coat, I found that the coverage was very uneven. Here is a shot of my dungeon workspace:

When I was finished, however, Caleb & I were really pleased! So easy peasy! They turned out great. Five months later, so far so good. Spots wipe off without a problem:

I finally got around to painting the room with Benjamin Moore’s Intense White, a soft white with the slightest hint of grey. I wanted a crisp, warm feel that tied in with the new grey floor tile. I love it.

Included wall art after attempting what I thought would be a simple DIY project of dressing up a couple of plain white frames with a touch of gold. I saw an interior designer do it in her own house. I was quickly reminded why she is a professional and I am an amateur. Glad I did it, though, because I think they make the room look more polished but I don't plan on doing it again:

I really love how simple and clean this whole room feels… even if I’m behind on my scrubbing!