Powder room



The powder room was a major embarrassment any time I had people over. I still cringe whenever I look at old pictures, however it was not as bad as the upstairs bath.

 When I first moved in I immediately had a plumber change out the toilet and faucet. I always see design pictures of small bathrooms with funky wallpaper, but I’m more of a traditionalist and was nervous to take the plunge myself. The Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore is known to be eccentric, so I thought if there was a house to experiment on design-wise this was it. 

I love geodes and rocks so when I saw this wallpaper it was love at first sight. 

Arthouse Agate Wallpaper


This was the first time I’ve applied wallpaper, and I was surprised how easy it was. I had also painted the kitchen cabinets in the meantime, and because the bathroom is off the kitchen I decided to paint the vanity and medicine cabinet the same color. The color is Behr Riverdale, and I used this paint, I used the same type of paint on the walls as well. 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-PREMIUM-1-gal-White-Urethane-Alkyd-Satin-Enamel-Interior-Exterior-Paint-790001/300787696

Once the wallpaper was applied I added the trim.  I used finishing screws to apply the trim then wood filled and sanded the holes. You could use a nail gun, but my walls are solid which makes it extremely difficult to nail/screw anything into the walls. The only issue I ran into was how to approach the outlets. There were 2 options that I could realistically do at my skill level and tools. I wasn’t comfortable trying to move the outlet.

In the end I decided to go with the angled edge. Once I wood-filled and sanded all the gaps and caulked between the trim and the wall, I painted the trim and wall below the color Ghost Pines by Sherwin Williams. 

In the end, I was really happy with the end result and have received a lot of compliments from guests. Not including the toilet and faucet, the entire transformation cost less than $200 and a couple of days of my time. 


 

Disclaimer: All Amazon links are affiliate links

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Removing a non-load bearing wall

Image
The first thing I did when I moved into the house, before I moved my furniture in because I knew it would be a mess, was removing the wall between the "den" and the living room.   Disclaimer: the only reason I knew it was safe to attempt this and the wall was non-load bearing is because every other house on the street was built the same way and this wall was added by a previous owner.  It was still framed as a cutout with drywall in the middle.  Don't attempt to remove any wall that you are unsure if it is load bearing. This was my first ever DIY attempt at anything, and I did not go about it well.  I should have bought the proper tools, but instead, I demolished the wall with nothing other than a hand saw I purchased from Dollar Tree and a razor blade.   First I cut into the drywall with the razor to look inside and see what I was working with.  It was nothing more than a couple of 2x4s to hold the drywall in place, so I used the saw/razor blade ...
Read more

Kitchen Cabinets

Image
  Covid was the first time that I had to spend an extended amount of time in my house, and I set up my home office in the kitchen and I realized how much I hated it.  I had always planned on painting the cabinets, but the catalyst to take action was staring at them all day for 9 hours and no social plans to distract me.  I had read that painting cabinets was more difficult than expected, and that definitely proved to be true.  It took so many hours, I lost track- at least a few weeks of continuous work.  The wood grain on my cabinet doors was very prominent, so it took a lot of wood filler and sanding to remove the grain enough to paint.   I started by removing all of the cabinet doors, applying wood filler, then sanding.  I did 3 rounds of this per cabinet, then I painted with primer and the wood grain was still too prominent.  Then, I wood filled and sanded, primed, wood filled and sanded again.  By that point, I was done. If I had to ...
Read more

Front Porch

Image
One of the main selling points of the house was the front porch. I've always dreamed of having a front porch to sit out and watch the rain.  The front porch also happened to be one of the most neglected parts of the house.  If the overhang of your porch does not extend far enough out from the floor of the porch, then the wood on the edge will start to rot.   The first thing I did was create a gate because I have 2 dogs and live on a busy road, so I was very paranoid about the dogs running out into the street.  I also wanted to be able to sit out on the porch with the dogs without worrying about a leash.  The next thing that needed to get repaired was the floor of the porch.  One night I looked out the window and saw a big Baltimore rat climbing into the hole in the porch, and the next day I needed to do something about it.  There was a subfloor under the boards, so I used a circular saw to just cut through the layer of boards, without cutting into...
Read more