ORC Week Two: Powder Room Restoration

It's the end of Week Two for my Powder Room restoration - One Room Challenge.  Thanks for checking back in!

For those of you that may be new to the post - the One Room Challenge dares you to design/redesign a room in less than 6 weeks.  There's no prize - just the satisfaction of being
able to complete a project under the gun.  However, I've realized that in order to masterfully "finish" in time - you REALLY need to have a good plan mapped out for ultimate success.

 I'm telling you all of this because I didn't "map out" this particular powder room renovation before I took the plunge and joined in the ORC fun.  Obviously, any kind of renovation work will have it's fair share of bumps in the road, but this week, I uncovered a small pothole.

Read on...you'll see.  It's something that I knew about, but wasn't mentally prepared to make a decision on until it was revealed- nor could I.


ORDER VANITY
I saw this gorgeous beauty of a vanity last winter in a showroom while sourcing tile for a client.  She didn't need a vanity, but I took a photo of it anyway to remember it for another client.  Who KNEW that the deserving client would be "little ole me"!  How FABULOUS!  As it turns out, my champagne tastes and beer budget didn't really allow me to be able to purchase this particular model.  So, I improvised and called up Mitch Mitton, the cabinet-maker extrordinaire!  I was lucky enough to catch Mitch in between jobs, so he was able to take on the task of recreating a vanity similar to this one for me.

I absolutely love the fret work on this piece.  However, the wallpaper that I selected is a Chinois pattern and I thought that I ought to use a more simple Chippendale-type of style fretwork to go with it.  Here's the Pinterest photo that inspired the look for the new vanity fretwork:

Via

So, Mitch has taken on the project and he'll create a more simple fretwork pattern (like this) for the vanity.

PUTTING IT BACK TOGETHER

The next task in this powder room was to strip the walls.  I was a little more than bummed about the damage to my Thibaut wallpaper.  But, I should be happy that I got nine years worth of looking at it.  It was so easy to strip, I think I did it in 20 minutes! HA!

            My jack-of-all-trades man, Luis came to patch the walls, install the baseboard and prime.
But, before he came, I knew that I had to get rid of the shower arch.  It wasn't planned, but, the arch was driving me crazy.  It was low and kind of made the space feel a little claustrophobic.  OFF it went!  Yahoo!!  Immediately the difference was amazing - as you can see!

 

It gets better!  Luis hasn't even repaired the walls or primed yet.  I'm SOOO excited to get rid of the blue walls.
                                                                       VOILA!

And, here we are at the end of Week Two.  The space is taking shape again and looking bigger.  I love the white and am excited about the next steps.  Or, am I?

Stay tuned for next week.  There's a WINDOW behind the shower wall.  A rotted window.  I'm trying to cut costs with this renovation.  But, I'm not too certain that I want to keep the existing ceramic square tiles when I found such a gorgeous pearl shell tile to replace it.

                                                                DILEMMA
1.  Should I  tile over the existing window, even though it's rotted?     (seems to be the least expensive route)
2.  Should I spend the money on a new window and tile over it using the pearl shell tile as the focal point on the wall?     OR,
3.  Should I spend the money on a new window, tile around it while forsaking my original design and apparant LUST for this pearl shell tile (and use the Pearl Shell tile, but at a minimum)?

Regardless, whatever I do, I can't do much until the shower tile is removed and I'm able to look at the damage and measure the window and order a new one.  That happens tomorrow.

Ah the life of an interior designer!  Decisions, decisions!  Stay tuned for next week and I'll tell you what I've decided.

In the meantime, please see what the ORC Linking Participants are doing here and click here to see what the ORC Guest Participants  (like me) are up to.  We post every Thursday!  Tootle-oo!