My Moody English Powder Room Makeover: Giving a Tiny Bathroom an Older Soul
My powder room wasn't necessarily bad before I started this makeover. In fact, I had already given it a small renovation a few years earlier, and at the time, the changes felt right for my home and my style.
But homes evolve—and apparently, so do I.
Over the last few years, I've found myself moving away from the lighter French-inspired look I once loved and gravitating toward interiors that feel warmer, moodier and more collected. I've fallen in love with deep colors, antique brass, old-world details, vintage pieces and the comfortable, layered feeling of English interiors.
Suddenly, this little bathroom didn't seem to belong with where the rest of my home was headed.
So I decided to change it.
And because this powder room is only about 3 feet by 5 feet, I figured it was the perfect place to be a little brave.
Instead of trying to make such a tiny room feel lighter and bigger, I decided to go in the opposite direction.
I wanted to make it small, dark, dramatic and beautiful.
The Before: When a Room No Longer Feels Like You
The light walls and builder-grade finishes were a big part of what wasn't working for me anymore.
They weren't necessarily wrong; they just felt a little flat compared with the richer, more traditional look I was beginning to create throughout the rest of my home.
The wallpaper also needed some attention.
This room had been my very first attempt at wallpapering, and while I was pretty proud of myself for tackling it, time had started revealing some of my beginner mistakes. A few of the edges were lifting.
I could have simply repaired them, but I decided it was the perfect excuse to rethink the entire room.
I didn't want to renovate just for the sake of renovating. I wanted this little space to become one of the first rooms that really reflected where my decorating style was headed.
The Inspiration: Starting With Two Things I Love
When I started thinking about what I wanted the powder room to become, there were two things I knew almost immediately:
I wanted toile, and I wanted Urbane Bronze.
I've always loved toile. There's something about the traditional pattern that feels timeless, romantic and distinctly old-world. It has that collected European quality I was beginning to want more of throughout my home, so incorporating it into this room felt like an easy decision.
The bigger question was how to pair it with one of my favorite paint colors: Sherwin-Williams Urbane Bronze.
Urbane Bronze is a deep, warm brown with beautiful earthy undertones. I love the richness it brings to a room, and as my decorating style has become moodier, I've found myself wanting to use deeper colors rather than automatically reaching for something light.
Finding a way to marry the two became the inspiration for the entire design.
Rather than choosing between wallpaper and dark paint, I decided I wanted both.
And, as it turns out, toile and Urbane Bronze are pretty happy together.
The Design Plan: Adding Character to a Tiny Room
Once I settled on Urbane Bronze, I started searching for the right wallpaper to pair with it.
Since the previous version of the powder room had wallpaper covering the entire room, I knew I didn't want to simply repeat what I had done before.
I still wanted the pattern and character of toile, but this time I wanted the walls themselves to have more architectural interest.
That's when I decided to divide the walls with a chair rail and add picture-frame molding below it.
The molding gave me the opportunity to use the toile on the upper portion of the walls while letting Urbane Bronze take over the lower half. More importantly, it added some of the traditional architectural detail that had been missing from the room.
Because this powder room is only about 3 feet by 5 feet, every design decision has an impact.
My hope was that breaking up the walls and adding architectural details would give the eye more places to travel, creating the illusion of a room with a little more depth and dimension.
Instead of trying to hide the fact that the bathroom is tiny, I decided to give that tiny space as much character as possible.
Once the walls were planned, I started looking at the builder-grade finishes that were still in the room.
They suddenly stood out even more.
I wanted the fixtures and finishes to accentuate the old English feeling I loved about the combination of the toile and Urbane Bronze. That's where changing the light fixture, mirror and faucet became an important part of the plan.
I looked for pieces with warmer, aged finishes and more traditional shapes—things that felt as though they could have been collected rather than purchased together as a matching bathroom set.
Those changes weren't necessarily the largest parts of the renovation, but they ended up making a surprisingly big difference.
The Transformation: When the Plan Meets Real Life
With the design figured out—or at least mostly figured out—it was time to start tearing things apart.
I began with demolition, removing the old wallpaper, mirror, light fixture and subway tile backsplash.
Taking everything out gave me a clean slate and, for the first time, I could really start to see what this tiny room might become.
Then came the reconstruction.
I painted and began adding the chair rail and picture-frame molding boxes.
Almost immediately, the room started to feel different.
The molding gave the walls dimension they had never had before, and once the Urbane Bronze went up, I knew I had made the right decision about going dark.
Then it was time for wallpaper.
And that's where things went a little south.
The Great Wallpaper Debacle
Here's something I learned the hard way:
Order more wallpaper than you think you're going to need.
I hadn't ordered enough.
That doesn't sound like a major problem—just order another roll, right?
Apparently not.
It took me four attempts to get additional wallpaper in the same color as my original order.
What I thought would be a fairly simple step ended up slowing the project down considerably.
Eventually, though, the right wallpaper arrived, and seeing the toile against the Urbane Bronze made all of the frustration worth it.
They worked together exactly the way I had hoped.
The Backsplash I Couldn't Figure Out
The other place where the project stalled was the backsplash.
After removing the old subway tile, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to put back in its place. The wall also needed some drywall repair, which gave me even more time to second-guess myself.
I brought in several different options, but nothing felt quite right.
I didn't want to put something back simply because the space needed a backsplash. By this point, the room was developing so much character that whatever went behind the vanity needed to feel intentional.
Then I found a shop on Etsy that made custom marble backsplashes.
That was it.
Having a piece made specifically for the vanity gave me the clean, traditional look I wanted without competing with the toile, molding or dark paint.
And I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.
It's one of those details I hadn't originally planned for, but it ended up becoming one of my favorite parts of the room.
Then Came the Fun Part
Once the wallpaper, molding, paint and backsplash were finally in place for my moody English powder room makeover, I got to do my favorite part:
Accessorizing.
This is where the bathroom really began to feel finished.
I searched for wall art, a towel holder, toilet paper holder, cabinet hardware and smaller accessories that would reinforce the warm, old-world feeling I wanted without making the room feel overly themed.
I wanted each piece to look as though it belonged there, but I didn't want everything to match perfectly.
Warm metals, vintage-inspired details and little decorative pieces helped soften the dark walls and make the room feel layered and lived-in.
And that's probably one of my favorite lessons from this entire project.
A renovation doesn't always unfold exactly the way you planned.
Sometimes you run out of wallpaper.
Sometimes it takes four tries to get the right color.
Sometimes you stare at a missing backsplash for much longer than you'd like to admit.
And sometimes the thing you never planned on—like a custom piece of marble you happened to find on Etsy—ends up being the detail that makes the entire room.
The Final Reveal: A Little Room With an Older Soul
When I started this project, I didn't want the finished powder room to feel trendy or newly renovated.
I wanted it to feel inviting and elegant—like a room that might belong in a beautiful home from the 1930s or '40s and had simply been cared for and updated over the years.
That's really what guided so many of the choices.
The toile, picture-frame molding and marble bring in the traditional elements I was craving, while the Urbane Bronze gives the room the warmth and moodiness that has become such an important part of my evolving style.
The aged-looking metals, vintage-inspired fixtures, artwork and smaller accessories help make the room feel collected rather than newly purchased.
And despite going considerably darker in such a tiny space, the room doesn't feel smaller to me.
If anything, all of those layers gave it more dimension.
There's something about walking into it now that feels warm and enveloping. It's still only a 3-by-5-foot powder room, but it has a presence it never had before.
Is it historically accurate to the 1930s or '40s?
Probably not—and that wasn't really the goal.
I wanted the feeling of an older home: beautiful materials, traditional details, warm colors and pieces that look as though they could have been there for years.
Most importantly, I wanted this room to feel like it belonged in the home I'm creating now.
And it does.
This little powder room ended up becoming one of the first spaces where I could really see my style changing—from the lighter French-inspired look I had gravitated toward before to something deeper, moodier and a little more English.
Maybe the best way to describe it is Moody English with a French accent.
And for a room this small, I think it has an awfully big personality.
Shop This Look
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