Our powder room had a pretty basic color scheme, black, white, and metallic gray atomic starburst wallpaper. It also had some pretty cool original lighting above the sink. The wall tile was simple 4" white tile with black and gray specs throughout. The vanity was painted white and had louvered doors (like all of the bathrooms). It's countertop is some kind of cultured marble with an under mount sink. The counter top is a bit faded and discolored from age and the faucet is oddly traditional, but it will do for now. The floor was black 1" tile. We also had a plastic dixie cup holder and a medicine cabinet with a louvered door. Those plastic dixie cup holders were in every bathroom! The owner must have loved them. Overall, the bathroom had really nice basic colors and simple styles that makes an update pretty easy. That's the beauty of mid-century modern design.
The accents when we bought the house consisted of a red, furry toilet seat cover and a fake plant hung from a ceiling hook. Here are some "before" pictures.
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| "Before" Picture of Powder Room |
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| Original Lighting |
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| Wallpaper close-up |
I'm sure some of you reading this would love this wallpaper but I didn't. It was coming off of the wall and it felt kind of like a shower curtain when you touched it. Although I liked the pattern, having it all over the walls was a bit too much for my cleaner, modern tastes. So this was the first thing to go. It was a DREAM to remove as it came off in big vinyl sheets! We also took off the dixie cup holder, the furry toilet seat cover, and removed the fake plant. I thought about removing the medicine cabinet but decided to leave it. I don't know why you would need a medicine cabinet in a powder room but it didn't hurt anything so I decided to keep it.
I painted the walls in the bathroom Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray, which is a pretty dark gray. I used a paint with primer in case there was any residual glue on the walls. This room has no natural light so I was a little concerned about painting it such a dark color but I
love it. It's one of my favorite paint colors in the house. I also printed out some vintage bird art that I found for free
here and framed them in modern Ribba frames from
IKEA. I then decided to pay homage to that wallpaper and framed a small sample as art. I love it and it's a great conversation piece when people come over. I love that wallpaper so much (in small doses) that I've saved a couple of giant sheets in case anybody else wants a framed sample--so far nobody has taken me up on the offer:-)
A few other accessories like a brass bird from anthropologie, a vase with billy buttons from Michael's Craft stores and we're done. Maybe someday I'll update the counter and the faucet but we have much bigger projects to tackle in this house so I'm happy with the way it is for now. Here are the "after" pictures--much better! Modern, clean, with a little bit of retro and glam.
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| Original everything. |
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| New wall color and art |
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| Towel from Homegoods |
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| Framed wallpaper as art |
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| Original everything. |
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