Portland Project: Powder Bath Design & Update

Today, we are talking all about the powder bath in the Portland house and walking you through the design process, even though yes, you may have seen sneak peeks of the finished room on stories. Powder baths are always small (traditionally just two pieces—vanity/sink and toilet) and the bathroom that you presumably spend the least amount of time in, so it is where you can take a little bit of a risk. You can, of course, take a risk in your more frequented areas, but for the bold design timid, this small space seems far less scary to plaster dark paint colors and printed wallpapers all over than say…your master  bedroom.

As a reminder, this bathroom is on the main floor of the house, like so:

It’s a standard size, of almost 5-foot by almost 6-foot (powders can even be smaller) and it needs to have only a few elements.

The inspiration was classic traditional, with some more modern and fun touches. It doesn’t have a window so we wanted to do something to make it interesting and exciting. Just white drywall would look so dead and flat.

Here is the mood board that we pulled together.

Flume Spout | Cross Handles | Tresham Pedestal Sink | Artifacts Toilet Paper Holder | Artifacts Towel Holder | Tresham Pedestal Sink | Flooring | Wallpaper | V-Groove | Waterloo Paint | Pivot Mirror | Sconce

There it is all together, but let’s break it down:

Flume Spout | Cross Handles | Tresham Toilet | Angle Supplies | Artifacts Toilet Paper Holder | Artifacts Towel Holder | Tresham Pedestal Sink

Let’s start with the polished nickel fixtures from Kohler (who sponsored this post and provided the beautiful fixtures for the Portland home). I chose the Artifacts line because there is someone inside of me who wants desperately to have a house that warrants such beautiful decorative fixtures and it’s not right for the mountain house. This was my chance. The whole line has this curvy detail and it’s done so well and in such a high-end material that it works. When cheap faucets try to look ‘Old World’ and decorative, they can look cheap and cheesy but these, in the polished nickel, look so beautiful. Oh, and another thing I liked about the Artifacts line is that you can mix-and-match spouts and handles to really customize the look you want (we went with the flume spout and the cross handles). We used the towel and toilet paper holders from the same line (even though we considered pulling from another collection in the same finish…the bonus of using one brand across the board…options), because they were super sleek with just enough detail to really play up the angles in the Tresham pedestal sink and toilet.

Why polished nickel? Well for this house, I wanted to go more traditional with the fixtures and while they do offer a polished brass finish in that line as well, I was worried that a polished brass just wouldn’t feel classic enough for what I was aiming to do (a raw brass would solve the problem, though IMHO). And polished nickel is beautiful, forever and always. Now that it’s all done, I have moments where I think the polished brass could have totally worked, but I’m still glad we did the polished nickel (and it’s throughout the house, as well).

We used the Tresham line of pedestal sink and toilet which I think is super beautiful with really squared off decorative detail. I really wanted to use this pedestal in our LA house but they plumbed for a cabinet (miscommunication) so this was our chance. It’s so sculptural and striking so if/when you can use a pedestal, I highly recommend this one. It’s BEAUTIFUL.

The flooring continues from the rest of the house and warms it all up. I kind of regret not doing this in our LA house. I like my penny tile, but a powder room is a good place to use the wood flooring that is already on that floor (less chance of water damage because there’s no shower or tub) and I like how it continues and doesn’t stop your eye.

The wall paneling is 3 5/16-inch V-groove from Metrie with a more modern architrave and baseboard to trim it out and that beautiful Metrie door really elevates it. We painted it Waterloo by Sherwin Williams—a color we pulled from the wallpaper, and boy is it such a happy color. The wallpaper is from Rebecca Atwood and it looks a little busy in the below renderings, but in person, it’s so beautiful, happy and hand printed.

We used a pivot mirror in polished nickel to go over the molding and topped it off with a fluted glass sconce in polished nickel as well.

Here it is in the 3D rendering. In this rendering, the wallpaper had to be repeated in a weird way so it looks kinda weird and patchy (sorry), but otherwise, you get a good sense of how it’s all coming together (in the lead image of this post, you can see a little sneak peek to the real thing…it’s just a rough iPhone photo).

And though the space isn’t all that large, we still wanted to do a fun little walk-through of the renderings so you can see all angles in action.

Head to my Instagram stories for a more thorough IRL sneak peek of the final room. We’ll be shooting this next week with a full reveal coming soon. But let me tell you, being in that room is exciting and way better in person than in the rendering (as per usual).

Ask any questions in the comments and head to stories to see more. xx

*This post is in partnership with Kohler, and all designs and words are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that let us create this daily content.