Ain’t No Plain Jane Powder Room — The Inspiration (Spring 2019 ORC Week 1)

Hello all! It’s time for the Spring 2019 One Room Challenge!

A quick introduction if you’re new to Home Glow Design and Home Glow’s Saturday Blog —

 

I’m a New Hampshire designer & writer focused on fresh classic style, quality, and comfort for the “Forever Home.”

I love gorgeous colors and patterns, and I’m a sucker for architecturally/historically-inspired design.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the ONE ROOM CHALLENGE, it’s the brain-child of Linda Weinstein. Twice a year, 20 invited designer/bloggers and a host of guest participants complete a room in 6 weeks, with a weekly blog post to update on progress. Featured designers post on Wednesday and guest bloggers post on Thursday. Hence, for the next 6 weeks, Home Glow’s Saturday Blog will post on Thursdays. If I find some spotlight inspiration for Saturdays, I’ll do a quickie post for you.

 

 

I’ve been a guest participant twice before, transforming 2 “historically-inspired” spaces in my old 1790 home:

 

The Ultimate She-Shed

 

My Artfully Fresh Foyer

 

This round, I’ll be tackling our powder room, which is right off the above foyer.

A powder room is the *perfect* place for funky and/or dramatic (and/or expensive wallpaper, hehehe)!, and I’ve bookmarked about 100 of them over the 6 years we’ve lived here.

But now it’s crunch time, and it’s time to stick a flag in the ground!

 

 

Ghosts of Authors Past

One of the reasons I love old houses is the knowledge that so many other lives have been lived between the walls. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, you can still imagine and feel that presence of the past inhabitants as you walk through the rooms.

When we were looking for our own “Forever House,” it was a prerequisite that it had to be OLD. A “nice to have” would be a friendly spirit or two.

 

After 229 years, you’d think there might be at least one ghost hanging around here, but no dice. Apparently everyone who lived here was totally happy didn’t leave any unfinished business.

 

But then, as I was searching high and low for the perfect, funky, UNIQUE wallpaper, I found this fabric from Root Cellar Designs.

 

I’m not quite sure why it’s so pixelated. Anyway, a POLTERGEIST!  A GHOST!!! And of a perfectly lovely Regency era lady holding a book under her arm.

 

Quite like my favorite Regency-era author.

Jane Austen, as portrayed by Anne Hathaway and Olivia Williams in 2 of my all-time favorite Austen biography-inspired films, Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets (especially the latter).

Via Lost in Drama.

 

Root Cellar Designs can customize any of its patterns. I loved the green on the lady’s coat and the pink in her purse — all I wanted to see was the pattern on a sky blue stripe instead of green and have it on wallpaper instead of fabric.

 

Easy Peasy.

 

Above is the first strike-off — custom sample — Root Cellar sent me. The lady’s coat and book were a little more brown than in the original (now on wallpaper) and she’d lost the roses in her cheeks and the pink in her handbag. They gave it another go.

 

 

Perfection!

 

Want to know what all that green is going to do in this No Plain Jane Powder Room?

I’ll be back next week with the “Plan!”

I’ll also have some absolutely indispensable information about a certain kind of tile that is growing in popularity … but that you won’t find anywhere else on the web. You won’t want to miss it.

 

Head back over to the ORC to check out all the rest of the transformations!

 

See you next time!

-Amy