Punch Up Your Powder Room
Since Victorian baths began rocking wallpaper, it’s been a powerful way to energize a tight space. Here, local designers provide fresh takes on a classic pairing.
TEXT BY SARAH STEBBINS
In a York Beach summer home, a Schumacher rope print “offers a coastal nod that doesn’t feel literal or obvious,” Portland designer Tyler Karu says. A matching ceruse-finish vanity with a Carrara-marble top fairly melts into the swirly backdrop, while nickel fixtures provide polish
A Rejuvenation industrial-style steel sink floats on a Hygge & West woodland scene in a bath dreamed up by partners/sisters-in-law Heidi Lachapelle, of Portland, and Katie Judkins for Judkins’s Cumberland home. Visually weightless fixtures disappear into the forest.
South Portland designer Bronwyn Huffard likes to match wallpaper with wainscoting to trim costs and make cleaning easier. In this Yarmouth space, she left an existing vanity in place and added abstract-floral sisal wallpaper, by Schumacher, and a wrought-iron two-light sconce for “oomph.”
Thibaut’s stylized wave print, installed over shiplap, softens awkward angles in a Raymond lake-house bath designed by Fiore Home’s Vanessa Helmick. A quartz-topped vanity that reverses the wall colors provides a strong focal point, and brass cage sconces play up the nautical theme.
