Decorate Your Powder Room with a Unique Theme

You can make a great first impression on your guests with a themed powder room. This little room can be the perfect place to showcase your personality or try out a new decorating idea with committing to a larger, more expensive room. In many instances, this project can be completed in a weekend.

How can you choose a theme? Start with things that interest you. Think about your hobbies, places you would like to visit, favorite movies, books, places. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Choose a country: Italy and France are obvious choices, but why not try a lesser-known place like Tibet, Sweden, Russia, and Iceland. Study a map and select a place that intrigues you. It will be like a treasure hunt finding items in these themes as they are not as commonly used.

Seasons: Winter ski lodge, summer beach, spring flowers. Find a poem about the season and paint the words on your wall.

Movies: Gone with the Wind, Westerns, and Sci-Fi. Buy a movie poster of one of your favorite classic movies and frame in poster frame. Because it is a small room, this print will take up most of the space on one wall, lots of bang for your buck! Take your color cues from scenes on the movie poster, for example use dark green "velvety" towels to mimic Scarlet's dress in Gone with the Wind. Paint the walls in a surprising orange hue to bring to mind the fire scene.

Broadway Musicals: Frame some sheet music from your favorite musical, frame the playbill. Buy a poster and frame.

Mountain: Climbing, hiking, wildlife.

Museum Art Gallery: Frame many small prints in gold gilded frames, cover one whole wall. You can buy cheap frames at a discount store and simply paint gold using spray paint. For artwork, buy a calendar at a discount store; make color copies of the pictures onto heavy textured cardstock (available at scrapbooking stores) so it looks like an oil print.

Hobby or collectables: Antiques, toys, cars, airplanes.

Ocean: Sailing, sand, water, aquatic animals.

Once you have chosen your theme, look for an inspiration piece in that theme. An inspiration piece can be any object that you love and makes you feel inspired to continue in your theme. For example, if you choose Museum Art Gallery as your theme, your next step is to find an inspiration piece that reflects that theme. This could be a small statue of Michelangelo's David or a print of a Monet painting. Look around your house for things you already own for ideas. Your inspiration piece might be a playbill from a Broadway play or a menu from an Italian restaurant. Study the colors and other images, shapes on this piece. Chose 2 or 3 main colors for your room. One color can be used for wall paint and the other colors will be used for towels, rugs, flowers, vases, and other decorative objects. Carry your theme on to include all the senses. If you are doing a beach/ocean theme, get some coconut scented hand soap. Put a small CD or tape player under the cabinet and play themed music during dinner parties. Use a scented air-freshener fan style in a scent that coordinates with your theme, pine scent for mountain, roses for spring theme.

Let your imagination guide you as you create the powder room of your dreams.