Picture a room, a tiny room. My powder room, in fact. I had painted it a dark color I thought would make it cozy. Instead, it turned out cave-like, somber and bor-ring! I never took a picture of it because it was so unworthy, so I don't have a true "before" photo.
And so began this little project. I was just going to throw a bit of cheerier paint on the wall and call it a day. But, before I knew it, there was wallpaper involved, granite, new faucets, crown molding, chair rails, a ceiling update and new accessories. Has that ever happened to you? One little change led to another and another? Oh, my.

By the time I finally realized I might want a "before" photo, I had already removed the old white laminate counter top and ugly faucets, primed the walls for papering and painted a lovely shade of blue to go below the future chair rail. Oh, and I had also removed the popcorn texture from the ceiling.
My first design choice was the wallpaper. I chose the Thibault Sweet Life Happy Frogs (blue on white) wallpaper for a touch of whimsy.
My mother said, "Frogs?"
"Yes, mother." I replied patiently. "Happy frogs."
I didn't name this blog The Bright Side for nothin'! The wallpaper is a traditional pattern, but with a bit of humor thrown in. And that's the way we like it around here.
Next up, we decided to change out our tired old white laminate countertop to granite. Black granite. I ventured out to Home Depot to price it and after telling the sales girl the size we needed, she whispered the name of a stone store in my ear that had an incredible remnant inventory. Bless her heart. Turned out that store had room after room of remnants. The price ended up being about half the price it would have been if we had gone the Home Depot route. Score!
While we waited for our granite installation date, I de-popcorned the ceiling with the help of a mister and a 3" putty knife (that took less than an hour from start to finish), hung the wallpaper and then installed crown molding. What a difference that made!
After that I shopped around for a new mirror to replace the old plain one. It didn't take me long to discover the Stella mirror from
Ballard Designs. One little old hint to the husband and on my birthday it was mine. Thanks, honey!
Finally, our granite installation day arrived. We did all the other work ourselves, but when it came time to fit that heavy granite into that tight spot, we decided to leave that up to the professionals and I am so glad we did. It turned out beautiful and they had it installed in no time.

We put in the new faucet and chair rail after the counter top was complete. A few more finishing touches like a towel ring, new tp holder, new towels, fou-fou soap and we were done!
It is now one of my favorite rooms in the house. It makes me smile every time I go in there. Mission accomplished. Has that ever happened to you where you make one little decorating change and it leads to another and another? I'd love to hear about it.

A big hello to all you visiting from Between Naps for Metamorphosis Monday. Isn't Susan's blog lovely? This is my first time participating in Met. Monday, so I'm a little nervous. I hope you'll leave a little comment saying hello. Thanks for visiting!