Final paint touchups have been completed, the tile has been scrubbed from top to bottom, and aside from finding the right little accessories - the powder room is finally finished.
Like any older house, ours has many of those little quirks that gives a place character. When the house was built in 1935, the powder room was originally a pantry and sometime between then and now, a previous owner decided to remodel - with peach tile. A lot of peach tile. But even though peach is one of my least favorite colors, I didn't want to tear it out because I moved into this house intending to keep and enhance some of its retro charm.
I suspect we got a good deal on the house because it needed a lot of cosmetic work. The people we bought it from developed a wallpaper fetish sometime in the early 1980's and hadn't redecorated since that time. Every room is wallpapered in some combination of stripes and flowers or striped flowers, or flowered stripes, and every room is a different color. They even wallpapered the baseboards in the bedroom, and hey, the ceiling in the powder room!
Here's a glimpse of what it looked like. The wallpaper on the ceiling was also a dark blue to match the walls but, as a bonus, it had butterflies! (argh.)
(embiggen if you dare)
So we tore down the wallpaper, ripped out the old fluorescent lighting, got a pretty new sink and mirror, patched, painted, put up a faux tin tile ceiling, added some molding and look...So pretty! And isn't the original tile floor lovely? I'd like to get a little wrought iron vanity stool to put by that mirrored shelf so ladies could sit there and powder their noses. I may also do an etched design on the glass, to dress it up a bit.
(I need some fancy hand towels now)
Don't you love the fancy bowl on the sink? I chose all brushed nickel for the hardware because I like the way it feels - the hardness of the metal plus the softness of the finish. And see the built-in niches next to the mirror? I'm searching for the perfect milk glass candle holders to put in there, and maybe teeny little ferns.(I even changed the knobs on the cabinet to match the faucet)
I know that it may have seemed crazy re-wallpapering the ceiling, but honestly, it looks so good that we're considering doing the entire first floor to match.(ceiling detail)
It feels really good to finally start making this place our own!
13 comments:
Stunning transformation, and I commend you for going with your instincts and sticking with the peach tile - it's beautiful. I love your sink, too. Well done, you two!
That looks MUCH better. What were they thinking with blue wallpaper on the ceiling?
I'm surprised you guys re-wallpapered the ceiling. I would have said the hell with it and just painted it white.
Nice work! :-)
Could be worse-I was going to do a minor bathroom remodel, wound up with this..
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y77/pqdave/remodeling/DSC03202.jpg
(the results are worth it--Much more useful arrangement, and the dishwasher never empties into the shower anymore...)
Very nice work, but then I see you shoot, so paint and wallpaper is easy. That really is a great floor and the ceiling you picked and put up is great, for reflecting light and interest.
Absolutely beautiful! And now you know how gorgeous the rest of the house is going to turn out...
Good job!
I can only hope that we do as well when the time comes. Our house was built in 1908 and has had only one family line living in it, so not too many changes over time.
Our "powder room" (I immediately thing of my reloading space)had been installed sometime during the early Roosevelt II administration. At some point in the '70s, one of the sons put in a tile floor using those little one-inch tiles. The faux marble tiles are a washed out pink swirl. The wall papered walls are a (luckily faded)Pepto-Bismol pink. Oh, the horror! Did I mention the pink walls?
Yours looks good, looking forward to the future reports as you move through the house.
Hunter
Ketchikan, AK
BEAUTIFUL!!!
I just pray ours turns out that well. I wouldn't have believed the peach tile could work, but you did it. The floor is awesome, and like you said, it still looks like it could have been done in the 1930's.
Oddly enough, I have almost exactly that sink/vanity sitting in the box upstairs, and all my lights and such are brushed nickel, too. Hmm.
Can I tell you a secret? I still don't know what colors we're going to use. My wife says it's up to me as long as there are no pastels. Admiral Ackbar says that's A TRAP.
But we're down to bare studs and joists, and I have wiring and plumbing and subfloors and drywall yet to do before I worry about tiles and paint.
phlegmmy - thank you! I also couldn't afford that much tile if I decided to replace it. So it stayed.
mike w - I considered just painting it but I wanted fancy.
sevesteen - that photo made me shudder. yikes!
earl - I'm glad you approve! I look for excuses to go in and stare at that ceiling.
Hunter - tear down that pink paper! Hurry!
Don - your wife is leaving the color choice up to you? It's lovely when a marriage is based on so much trust ;)
I think she's more exhausted than anything else. See, we bought this place thinking we'd take years, close off the parts we were working on, and eventually, when we had room, think about kids. It's our money pit.
Six months later we got the chance to adopt our twins, and if we hadn't taken them, they'd have gone to their fourth foster home.
The project slowed appreciably.
We have that same flesh-colored tile and burgandy trim in our bathroom. Our house was built in 1950.
Nicely done. I wasn't sure about the peach tile in the original pic, but the contrasting colors you picked make it work.
Our kitchen is similar.. was but ugly, but painting the soffit, replacing appliances, changing hardware, and putting up a aluminum backsplash all around make it really less bland.. so the whitewashed cabinets don't look nearly as horrible as they used to.
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