The half bathroom or powder room on our first floor is functional, but it felt so dull and uninspiring that it was in dire need of a refresh. The original wall color matched the rest of the house when we purchased it (Sherwin Williams Crushed Ice), and while this color is suitable for larger rooms, it appears completely lackluster in a 5' x 5' space. Using the bathroom felt like being in a closet, and many of our guests shared this sentiment. People often ask where the bathroom is on the first floor because the space resembled a walk-in closet rather than a bathroom.
John and I decided to glam up this little powder room by adding paint, beadboard, chair rail, crown moulding, and new finishes.
A Bold Little Bathroom (or Powder Room)
The plan for this powder room redesign was bold in terms of the moulding, paint color, and finishes, but as the saying goes, "go big or go home". In this case, we did both!
Starting from the top, we installed crown moulding and applied a dark gray-blue paint from Behr called Calligraphy, to the upper half of the walls. Below that, we added a chair rail and beadboard to the lower section. We retained the existing baseboards, refreshing them with a coat of white paint to match the newly painted chair rail and beadboard. John also decided to try adding new moulding above the door, which turned out great. All the supplies were sourced from Home Depot.
The updates featured a new mirror, light fixture, towel rack, matching toilet paper holder, and a new vent cover for the heating and air conditioning. The old mirror was taken down and will be reused as a hallway mirror later on. Initially, I didn't plan to replace the existing mirror, but I was captivated by this new one. I particularly appreciated that the metal frame has some texture, which prevents it from appearing too flat.
Powder Room Plan of Events
Since we were adding so much to this small space, we needed to plan out the "order of events" so that we focused on the right details and didn't have to do repeat any work. Here is what we did in sequential order.
Measured and cut the crown moulding
Dry fit the crown moulding
Painted the crown moulding
Installed the crown moulding
Measured and cut beadboard
Dry fit the beadboard
Realized the beadboard was incorrect on two walls and repeated steps 5-6
Painted the beadboard
Installed the beadboard
Painted the top half of the walls
Painted the beadboard and baseboards (mostly touch-up)
Installed the light fixture
Installed the mirror, towel rack, toilet paper holder, and vent cover
The entire project took place over 3 weekends, amounting to 6 days in total. Step 7 required extra time because we installed the beadboard without taking out the existing toilet and vanity from the powder room. Removing them might have made the installation easier, but reinstalling both would have been much more difficult.
So what do you think of the end product? What would you change or do differently?
Looks fantastic! Love this read! Cant wait to hear more. Happy New Year!!