Powder Room Think

Today, the  traditional powder room focuses on a trio of key decorative elements.

Traditional powder room design is becoming as easy as one, two, three:

1. Convert a piece of furniture — preferably vintage or antique into a vanity.
2. Add a decorative mirror and a pair of sconces over it.
3. Plan a tile or wall treatment to add surface interest.

Even top pros like Washington, D.C. designer José Solis Betancourt and Southern design guru Phoebe Howard are profiting from these three steps to create pretty guest baths. But the work looked so similar, when we mixed it up here it  became challenging to unravel who did what.

For me, the issue is whether clients have been conditioned to want this “universal powder room” or designers do it because it’s the conventional wisdom and there’s fair profit in converting antiques. Nothing wrong with that.

And I have no argument with the tastefulness — these are all lovely. I do feel they suffer from the safety of sameness, perhaps in reaction to a troubled housing market or more likely tunnel vision on the part of the print press  — magazines — that repeat the same looks over and over.

(Sources: Solis Betancourt, Phoebe Howard, Trad Home)

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