Powder Room Makeover

MerriJane Hayes
by MerriJane Hayes
Turn a small powder room into a rustic retreat, this my new favorite room.
We had a plumbing leak, and were forced to tear the wall out to get to it. I have always hated the cheap paneling, just not enough to do anything until I was forced to.
We fixed the leak, replaced the drywall, and tore out the fake wood. Then a friend of mine, who is a contractor, retextured the standard orange peel with a imperfect smooth finish including the ceiling. I then painted the entire room a butter yellow. I then started adding the first layer of glaze with a rag smearing it into the imperfections and all over the wall and ceiling I used a glaze that can be mixed with any color. This first step was a tan color.
I continued to add two more layers of glaze in richer browns on the wall and ceiling. I'm not listing the colors specifically because they were samples and I doubt anyone could match them, and because I'm not sure you have to be that precis.
I wanted the room to be a reverse ombe (for lack of better term). This is the ceiling when I was finish. It gets darker as you get closer to the corners.
The color got lighter as it got closer to the middle of the wall. then I put a dark brown paint on the wall about 3ft up from the floor to go behind the wood.
Sorry I don't have better pictures of the wood. I didn't think to take pictures of the process. This is nearly 100 yr old wood floor that was headed for the landfill out of a house remodel. It was rough cut pine 2x8 and 2x12. I cleaned it and the sanded it (not completely smooth) then added minwax profintial pine and a coat of polyurethane. We then nailed it to the walls half way up.
I then cut copper roof flashing in 6in strips and cleaned it.
I layer the copper strips on a table in the garage side by side and spayed it with 2 mixtures. 1 of strong salt water and 1 of strong ammonia water, I put them in spray bottles and sprayed the copper until I got the color and texture I liked. If you mess up you can clean it and start over. It was really easy, more than I expected. I then covered it with polyurethane as well. I brushed it on, if I were to do it over again I would spray it on it would have a nicer finish.
I then tacked it to the wall with nails along the edge and in the corners, I'm sure you could glue it as well. But I didn't think it was nessesary.
I then took cheap lathe strips sanded and stained them to match the wood and framed the copper covering the nails.
I reused the vanity, I painted it turquoise and used the wood stain to antique it. So it pulled out the patina in the copper.
I then decorated the room with western art. I used a old draft horse collar for the mirror. I cut the mirror from an old one I had, I messed it up a little bit so I hot glued rope along the mirror edge to hide the imperfections. I also used old horseshoes as the TP roll holder we welded a half of a straightened horseshoe to a regular shoe and screwed it to the wall.
I couldn't afford decorative plate covers, so I bought generic wood ones at homedepot and wood burned them, the stained the to match the rest of the wood
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