House Beautiful

Tag Archive for 'powder room'

Modern Farmhouse Project: The Powder Room

Hope you guys all had a great holiday! The hardest decision I had to make all week was which Hallmark movie to watch, and whether to go white chocolate Reese’s peanut butter tree or original. It was glorious, and now my pants are totally gonna split and I don’t care one bit.

Anyhow (!) I wanted to share a sweet little powder room I’m working on for in a house in Ohio. It’s for a young family with a gaggle of kiddos who wanted a kind of cozy, modern farmhouse aesthetic… casual and warm without going too cliché rustic if you know what I mean. About 7 years ago, I had helped them revamp their little girl’s room – so I was delighted when they called and asked if I could help them with a slightly larger project – just a wee 4,000 sq ft house. Nbd.

The great thing about powder rooms is that they’re a perfect opportunity to take a little bit of a risk. And as the lovely Lauren Leiss points out in her new book HABITAT (which I am currently reading cover to cover):

“The Powder Room, often very small, is one of the most frequently used public spaces in a home… generally there isn’t much space in the powder room, so everything – the mirror, the hardware, the towels, the art – should be interesting or beautiful.”

Girlfriend is NOT wrong. Here’s the look we were going for…

INSPIRATION

Powder Bath Inso | Covet Living

VANITY

We wanted to source an antique washstand to use as a vanity, and top it with a vessel sink. These were some of the ones we looked at (all from eBay and all now sold, but eBay / Craigslist are killer sources for this kind of thing if you’re up for doing a little digging):

Antique Washstand 1

washstand 2

washstand 3

We couldn’t quite find one we loved, so we had a friend in North Carolina make one to my client’s size specifications (the room is only 37” wide).

Custom Made Antique Washstand | Covet Living

SINK

As vessel sinks go, this one is a gracious size (about 19″W x 15″D x 5″H). The square-ish shape keeps with the modern aesthetic, but the curved edges add some warmth and break up all the hard angles of the vanity.

Kraus KCV 121 Vessel Sink | Covet Living MIRROR

I wanted to do a round mirror in this space to – again – introduce another shape and juxtapose some of the hard lines in the room, but finding one large enough to not look dinky but small enough to still allow us to put sconces on either size was tough. This guy was the perfect size, and lends a little industrial vibe:

Metal Mirror with Shelf | Covet Living

FLOORING

We were originally going to run the same hardwood through here that’s in the rest of the house, but I felt like a little pattern on the floor would be super fun… we were going for a black (but preferably navy) and white pattern and entertained some of these:

Cement Tile Shop Floor | Covet Living

Black and White TIle Floor | Covet Living

CirculosWhite4_400x400

Gracias Madre Tile | Covet Living

Joanna Gaines Black and White TIle Floor | Covet Living

But looks like we’re leaning towards THIS guy (from the top picture), which we love.

IMG_1014

If we had more time, we could choose from a palette of colors and would customize in navy, but it’s an 8-12 week lead time and the black & white is in stock, so that settles that.

IMG_1013

LIGHTING

Finally, we’re between two sets of sconces: the clear glass library lights (love ‘em for being a little funky and bringing some glass into the mix)…

Library Light Sconces, Powder Room | Covet Living

vs. the mixed metal sconces (love ‘em for introducing a little antique brass in the sea of darker oil rubbed bronze).

Elkins Sconces, Powder Room | Covet Living

I think they can’t go wrong. What do you guys think?!

xoxo,

Steph's Scanned Signature