Powder Rooms with Punch
Photo by bruce van inwegen
Go ahead. It’s a small space: Splurge!
For much if its existence, the powder room was viewed as a nice, utilitarian space. No frills, simple, and neutral. Save for a few splashes of color, some handmade soap, and perhaps a piece or two of art on the walls, the small space remained much as the builder left it.
Enter the age of expression. Today, homeowners view this lovely little spot as an unexpected sanctuary where they can let their creativity shine through various wall textures, luxurious materials, exotic art, and bold colors. Even the green movement is making its way into this increasingly posh area.
“Powder rooms are gaining in priority,” says Kathy Hoffman, an interior designer with Susan Fredman & Associates of Chicago and the Harbor Country region in Michigan. “They’re more distinctive. People are out to make their powder rooms unique by, for example, using furniture for vanities, incorporating creative mirrors, and installing interesting artwork. It all adds flavor to the room.”
That’s what Chicago radio personality Steve Dahl was looking for when he redesigned his western Michigan home. Dahl wanted to create a fun powder room that reflected the feeling of the nearby beach. Hoffman and her team started by painting the powder room a light green, inspired by the beach grass outside. Then they fashioned the mirror’s frame out of driftwood they collected from the beach, and used reclaimed barn wood to construct a singular shelf. In the middle of the maple-wood flooring, they added a rectangular inlay filled with pebbles. “Essentially, it’s like tile, but with a little more texture,” Hoffman explains. Dahl agrees: “It reminds me of that Zen screensaver you always see, only on a bathroom floor. It’s relaxing, groovy, and feels good on your bare feet.”
Photo by Nick novelli
For an added whimsical touch, one of Susan Fredman at Home’s signature items—a sculptured “duck butt”—hangs on the wall. Normally, three duck-butt figures are lined up side by side and serve as coat hooks. For this powder room, Hoffman says the single, whimsical look creates a point-of-interest and serves as the shelf bracket. The Dahls also hung a framed letter from their young son, now 26, in which he expressed his love for their beach home.
Dahl could not be happier with the powder room—which was the only space in the house for which he chose most of the furnishings. “I would excuse myself a lot from the design meetings because I have a short attention span for fabric choices and the like,” he says. “There is a bathroom at Susan’s that had the stones, and everything else was on display on her showroom floor. I’m not good at visualizing things, but I know what I like when I see it.”
These days, Hoffman says, many homeowners take more risks with their powder rooms. They think of the room almost like a piece of jewelry, which gives them free rein to add creative elements and character to the small space: “It can be a $5,000 expression instead of a $200,000 investment,” she says. “The powder room is a contained space to be bold and adventurous—even if your adventurous looks conservative.”
Other homeowners simply want their powder rooms to be as good as the room that precedes it—in a style that is complementary but distinct, like an exclamation point at the end of an intriguing statement. Such was the case when interior designer Jean Alan, of her eponymous Chicago firm, set out to transform a Lincoln Park home’s powder room, which had no natural light, into a lighter, more airy space—something that would flow from the peach, pink, and lavender shades of the living and dining rooms. During a trip to an Ann Sacks showroom, Alan and her client unexpectedly found the answer: cut stained glass tiles in vivid, iridescent pastels. She lined the walls floor-to-ceiling with the tiles, then found ivory marble flooring with flashes of pink and green to match. Eight months later, Alan was searching for wallpaper for another room, when she stumbled upon a French 1920s original stock by Le Leu. Its colors—black, orange, green, and yellow—provided a darker, yet complementary, contrast to the powder room’s bright shades, creating the perfect transition. As a finishing touch, Alan opted to forego a cabinet so the sink would “float,” she says. “We needed to simplify because we had made such bold choices.”
Changing lifestyles also factor into the evolution of the powder room. Once their children have left the nest, homeowners often invite more friends and business associates into their homes. They want “wow” for the powder room, says Paula Winter, co-owner of Winter/Golin in Highland Park. That’s exactly what she and her business partner, Diane Golin, added when they redesigned a powder room to appeal to their client, Michelle Menaker, who was partial to English-inspired formal surroundings. “We wanted to make her powder room formal but transitional, to give it a sense of connection to the other rooms,” Winter says.
Accordingly, the designers left the porcelain tile flooring. However, to get a more formal English feel, they painted the space in wide red and gold stripes, and recast the ceiling in tone-on-tone gold polka dots. Two sconces were imported from England. “Over time they will oxidize, giving them more English character,” Winter says. The most eye-catching piece is the red-scalloped chandelier by John Rosselli. “I found it to be very lyrical,” she says. “The scallops help carry through the stripes on the wallpaper. It accents the movement of the design.”
To further personalize the space for Menaker, who is 5-foot, 3-inches tall, the partners visually “dropped” the 9-foot ceiling by painting it, the molding, and the top 10 inches of the wall the same gold tone—creating the illusion that the ceiling starts much lower than it actually does.
“It makes for a smaller, cozier space,” Menaker says. “Paula and Diane also positioned the mirror low enough so that I could easily see it. They also designed it so that there is enough light between the chandelier and the two scones to adequately see; yet the sconces and the chandelier are on separate switches, so I can dim one or the other for a softer light for my guests. These items were a little more expensive, but they really make the room. I said, ‘Let’s go for it. I love it.’”
That’s the fun of these small showcase spaces. “There’s a visceral response to a powder room,” Winter says, “and if that’s what we’ve captured, it’s a huge part of what people want.” MH
