The Secret Garden Under the Stairs
My clients have travelled to the most romantic destinations in Europe, but their favorite place in the world is The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. The Greenbrier is known for its bold interior design courtesy of Dorothy Draper (one of America’s first professional Interior Designers). Throughout the resort, you will see many different wallpapers, but the most popular by far is the Banana Palm design “Brazilliance” (designed by Draper herself), which is featured throughout the resort. If you love Dorothy Draper’s style, and would like to visit The Greenbrier, they have a “Dorothy Draper Decorating Weekend” event at the beginning of March 2023. You can find event info here.
Photos of The Greenbrier Resort, courtesy of ATouchOfTeal.com (Brazilliance palm leaf wallpaper shown center)
Powder rooms are definitely in my top 3 favorite rooms to decorate. Since it’s a bathroom that gets light use, and is seen by your guests, it’s an opportunity to have fun and do something daring that you may not typically do in a larger room. Wallpaper is often used in powder rooms, partly because there isn’t a lot of square footage to cover (and therefore the investment in materials and labor is more affordable than if you were to wallpaper a whole dining room or bedroom). If you want to use wallpaper in your house, an accent wall or powder room is a good place to start.
For my client’s little powder room tucked under their gorgeous 1920s staircase, they wanted a bold but elegant wallpaper that would remind them of the Greenbrier Resort. They initially wanted a palm leaf design like “Brazilliance”, but I nudged them in the direction of a floral trellis design, which was reminiscent of their charming garden and patio just outside the window, and would coordinate well with the other wallpapers in their home. We looked at lots of different options, but fell in love with a design from Milton & King. This wallpaper has spring green leaves, and large white flowers with touches of pink and yellow, scattered along a seafoam blue trellis vine. The background of the paper is speckled in a tonal royal blue.
Images of our completed powder room design in Elkins Park, PA (Photography by Kira Luxon, Design by Dahlhaus)
Before, the powder room was charming but lacked vibrance or color, except for the color yellow. The door and trim were a butterscotch yellow. The sink and toilet were two different shades of yellow. We considered keeping the yellow sink, but ended up replacing it with a lower profile option that had a tiny bit more countertop space. The yellow hex tile floor was cracked, so we replaced it with a polished Carrara marble diamond mosaic pattern. I chose a diamond pattern for the floor, because it plays off the diamond pattern created by the trellis in the wallpaper. We did reuse the gold mirror and white towel ring that were in the space previously, and they work beautifully with the new design.
Images of my clients’ mellow yellow powder room before the project began
We also added tile to the bottom half of the walls, since this bathroom will likely be used as a changing area for kids using the backyard pool (there’s no pool yet, but it’s on their wishlist, and it can’t hurt to think ahead). Although this wallpaper is durable and wipeable, I still prefer to avoid using wallpaper in wet areas (better safe than sorry). Aside from longevity, the other benefit to using tile on the bottom half the wall is that you only need to buy half as much wallpaper. And lastly, if it’s a busy pattern, having a solid color on the bottom half of the wall will help to visually tone down the overall design. It gives your eyes a place to rest.
I tied the dark blue wallpaper in with the white wall tile by adding a dark blue speckled pencil trim along the perimeter of the room (Aegean Blue from Qualis Ceramica’s “Reactiv” collection). And just for fun, I chose a green paint color for the door and trim, which matches the green leaves in the wallpaper. The paint color is Sherwin Williams Organic Green (6732).
Products and materials used for this powder room makeover
Last but not least is the light fixture. My clients love the elegance of chandeliers, but we needed something low profile. We chose a dome flush mount light with lots of coin-sized faceted glass jewels, which add sparkle to the room. It’s similar to the lights shown in the hallway at The Greenbrier, in the image shown at the top right of this page.
What’s your favorite part of this powder room?
