I read somewhere that powder rooms are the perfect space to try out your most dramatic (or outlandish) decorating ideas as their diminutive size makes even the most over-the-top decorating manageable. When we bought this house, the powder room had black fixtures, gold faux painting and a gold embossed wallpaper border. Apparently someone else had read same thing.
We thought for a while we could just strip the wallpaper and re-paint, leaving the black fixtures until time and finances allowed for replacements. Hooray! Something we don't have to completely gut, right?! Um, no. It seems the gold-flecked marble tile floor had been installed to cover the toilet leak that had rotted the subfloor. Anyone wishing to take a seat on that particular throne risked a surprise visit to the basement.
Sigh.
The silver lining here is that replacing flooring in a powder room is about as inexpensive as it comes, and after some new tile, white fixtures and plenty of white paint, it was transformed.
The one challenge that has remained is the window that overlooks our back patio. Because of the height of the window, it's virtually impossible to see anyone going about their business in the powder room. But it is a little disconcerting for visitors who don't know that only people standing on their tiptoes on the steps outside the window or on our neighbor's roof have a clear view inside.
So I needed a window covering. Preferably one that could stay over the window as a permanent "privacy screen" while still allowing in some light. Something that would fit inside the window moldings and move to allow the casement window to open and close. And since the powder room sports chalkboard walls and a mirrored disco ball, run-of-the-mill wasn't going to cut it.
I've been collecting a stash of vintage hankies from flea markets and thrift stores over the last year or so, intending to make a quilt with them (and I still will, believe me, there's more!) I cut the hankies to consistent-sized squares - I think at one point I had hankies in 8 different sizes - and even remembered to keep the already-finished hem on two of the hankies to use as the curtain top, thereby saving myself from having to sew an additional hem. (If you do this, be smarter than me, and realize this before you're down to your last 2 hankies).
So after a few quick seams and tracking down a nickel-finish cafe curtain rod and clips, there you have it. Maybe an hour's work and I can check that off my list. Just seven years, and one hour.