I Am Emme: Powder Room Update!

I've got one more house update up my sleeve to share with you today. We finally got around to updating our first floor powder room. Watching this little room's transformation was wildly satisfying. One, because it's the first room in the house I've used wall covering in (hopefully not the last!) and two, because we actually hired someone to do the work this time. I have no paper hanging experience and I really didn't want to take my fist stab at it in here with all the eaves to consider and risk ruining all that beautiful wall covering by royally screwing up the install trying to do it myself. So, we hired a paper hanger and since he was already coming in anyway, we had him go ahead and paint the trim too. I can not tell you how amazing it felt to leave in the morning and come home to fresh paint in a room that I did not have to do myself. Such a luxury. It probably won't be happening again anytime soon, but man, I could get used to that.

So, I did intentionally take before photos of this room but I have scoured every file and hard drive I have and for the life of me I CAN NOT FIND THEM. Grrrrrrr. Anyway, if you want a visual for the "before" the walls above the wainscoting were a dark chocolate brown and the trim and wainscoting was all a light tan color. The sconces that were in here were two ancient pull chain sconces and one was completely broken so we only had one working light. It was pretty stellar, obviously.

So we updated it with new wall covering, dark trim, new sconces, a new rug and a few accessories. But here's my confession. I don't love the new sconces. It has been such a struggle to find replacements because they have to be pull chain, which (surprise!) hardly anyone makes anymore and good luck finding any that are stylish to boot. Old houses do have their down sides. I discussed rewiring the sconces to be switch operated with Josh's dad who is really adept at electrical work and the process was not going to be pretty. Because of our particular electrical situation we'd have to slice all the way through the walls to pull the wiring to a switch at the entrance of the room and then we'd have to re-drywall etc. Ideally, this is what we'd do, but for practical purposes it just seemed like way too much work for a switch. In the end we decided to stick with pull chain sconces to avoid the hassle, but I'm still wondering if we made the right decision. And I'm still on the lookout for better sconces. But for now, these were the best I could find, and hey at least they both work. Baby steps!

Josh and I also discussed switching over the faucet, towel bar and hardware to pieces with a brass finish, but of course the faucet I've fallen in love with is on the spendy side of things (always), so that may come as a phase two situation down the road. We also still need some artwork, so we're not totally done in here by any means BUT at least we have progress! I'll be sure to update with new pics if (when, let's be real) that happens ;)

For now though, here she is