Hailey Home Powder Room Reveal

Skipping right on over a reveal post where we bought a townhouse and moving straight into the first room renovation because we’re all really here for the DIYs, right guys? In all honesty, our home buying process wasn’t terribly eventful and is almost hyper-specific to buying a potential rental property in a college town. (Though if you are interested in that, let me know! We’re balancing a lot of “only do renos that give us a return” with Pinterest dreams.) And after giving the entire place a fresh coat of white, the bathrooms were first on the makeover chopping block.

To fully give you a sense of the undertaking, here are all the before shots. The powder bath is the only bathroom downstairs and conveniently tucked under the staircase. Space-saving aside, this room shape posed some interesting design challenges.

To paint the picture:

• The ceiling slopped dramatically back towards the toilet, meaning a very limited space for art.
• The main wall is two parts. If you look at the below image, you can make out where a majority of the wall is more pushed back. This led to a lot of “Do we keep the parts visually separate or together?” debates.
• One the main wall that’s not pushed back is a perfectly fine medicine cabinet. Initially, I wanted to remove it, but in the spirit of budget renos (and honestly time) it stayed.
• The walls and ceiling were a weird beige that somehow was too yellow and too pink at the same time plus heavily textured. Or as we “lovingly” now know, the walls have an orange peel texture and ceiling is knockdown.

me contemplating the on-going black vs. brass debate^

From that challenge list, we made a DIY To-Do list:

Remove the towel bar, relocate & replace the toilet paper holder.

Why is there even a full towel bar in a half bath AND smack in the middle of the wall? And why would anyone put the toilet paper holder front & center AND so far away from the toilet?? All the bathroom accessories in our home were cemented to the wall which required extensive hole patching.

Replace the countertop.

Oh boy, was this a doozy. All of the countertops in the bathrooms and kitchen were this pinky-brown laminate that had to go. We debated this for months over what would be the best option. I compared prices for just replacing the whole vanity with built-in sinks (IKEA has some great options!) versus buying pre-cut bathroom countertops form Lowe’s or Home Depot versus doing all the countertops in the entire home at once and using the same quartz we wanted in the kitchen in the bathrooms.

After taking the cost of new faucets, sinks, plumbing, and size (a new vanity wouldn’t fully fill out the space, leaving an awkward 1-2″ gap on either side), it was actually cheapest to go with a Silestone quartz. Based on our lifestyle, we knew we wanted a chunky quartz countertop for durability that mimicked marble for a dramatic tone-on-tone effect that we can enjoy without having to worry about maintenance. My full love note to our countertops in a later post <3.

Replace the vanity handles.

Boom. Easy(ish). The ones I had my heart set on would have required filling in holes and repainting every. single. cabinet. That kind of time & money just aren’t worth it when you’re working 2 full-time jobs, so we went with our next favorite.

Invest in high-end finishes

Even though this is a “budget” makeover, it’s still a makeover geared towards helping us resell or rent in the future. That’s why we believe in investing a little extra in the products you’ll use everyday. We want to be able to enjoy the updated house, and if we decide to rent it out once we move, not worry about replacing any cheap fixtures. You never know what kind of renters you’ll get in a college town.

That’s why when The Bath Outlet wanted to help with we were so excited! They have some of the most highly rated bathroom fixtures plus the best customer service I’ve ever dealt with. We went with an Italian chrome faucet (hands down the nicest faucet I’ve ever used and I still can’t believe I get to use it every day when I feel the smooth tap glide. Even water flow is not a myth!) and Italian ceramic undermount sink to give us a little more counter space. Going from a cinder block literally cemented to the wall to this matte black toilet paper holder that matches the new cabinet pulls perfectly brings our little powder room up to resort level luxury.

(Disclaimer: Not a sponsored post. The Bath Outlet gifted us a few items that will be denoted with * to try out their products. All opinions are my own and you can find me regularly gushing over The Bath Outlet on my stories. Thank you for supporting brands that support ctrl + curate :))

Figure out what the heck to do with the big ol’ blank wall.

This puzzle was the most satisfying to solve. I asked you guys to vote on a few options on my stories and it was a tie between a small gallery wall or one, large dramatic print. Ultimately, when I brought in all the frames, the bathroom began to feel claustrophobic. We’re already dealing with a sloping ceiling so we needed to combat that!

I also wanted to do a dramatic wallpaper on the main wall as an unexpected backdrop to the print. I ordered a bunch of samples, finally picked one that straddled the line between modern & classic, tested it, and it failed spectacularly. Remember that orange peel texture I mentioned?

Now, we could have spent another precious weekend smoothing out the wall and then another to apply wallpaper OR we could DIY. You already know the answer.

We painted them! When I say we, I mean I went out, bought a small sample can and the biggest flathead brush I could find, and finished this brushstroke pattern in an afternoon. Nothing drives me more nuts than when you can tell where a wallpaper pattern repeats. I didn’t want the pattern to be too overwhelming so I just painted the main wall on the right and the left sink wall to keep eyes scanning between the two farthest points in the room to trick the brain into thinking the space was larger.

I have a short tutorial coming soon with little tips for getting a clean brushstroke. In the meantime, I’m completely in love with this large scale pattern!

cheetah print | frame (similar) | toilet paper holder*

Right next to the toilet is shorty wall # 1. Just enough space for a print and the toilet paper holder.

faucet* | sink* | candle | hand towel | match striker

The closeup moment this faucet deserves. Straight modern lines plus subtle curves make it perfect for that modern-classic look we were aiming for.

rug | cabinet pulls

This rug is actually the first piece I bought for the bathroom. I knew I wanted something patterned but toned down enough to not compete with the walls. This cushy option also has a non-slip back which is a plus!

Shorty wall #2! Adding more art behind the toilet felt redundant, so we opted for a styled tank tray. A flowering branch fills up the vertical space of the wall without creeping over and tapping someone as they sit down.

I used the vertical brushstrokes near the middle, top to highlight the taller parts of the ceiling and horizontal strokes towards the edges to make the room feel bigger.

The Hailey House is slowly becoming a Hailey Home! I wish these pictures did it justice. Walking in there after living with the dark, dingy bathroom to this has been the best makeover experience.

This is our first room reveal, so be sure to tell us what you’d like to see! Would a budget breakdown be helpful? More close-up shots? Let us know!