Powder Room Design with Photowall

Anyone else looking around their house that you’ve been sitting in for the last five months thinking “hmmm…what can I wallpaper this week?” No? Just me. Ok then. I took that quest I had for wallpapering and redid our small powder room.

When we moved in, the room was FINE. It was basic. Everything was the cheapest fixture you could buy. It was a strange color of purple. It felt…ugh. Luckily, Photowall reached out to me about a collaboration at the perfect time. My wallpaper dreams were finally going to come true.

I’ve always wanted a powder room because it feels like a space that you can take design chances in. The door is usually closed, it’s small enough to renovate in a weekend, and you don’t spend a ton of time in it. My goal was to make this room modern, kind of quirky, surprising, and with interesting little twists.

I started with one piece of decor to base the room off of: a framed tea towel. The graphic nature of the flowers, the bright colors, and the stark black border were the jumping off point of the room. Next came the wallpaper…

Photowall has almost too many choices for wallpaper. Since this is real wall paper, not removable, I leaned towards a pattern that could possibly work with different color schemes in case (who are we kidding…when) I want to redesign the room in a few years. You know I love geometrics – the grafo in white was perfect.

On Mother’s Day, one of my gifts was a full day to wall paper this powder room in peace. Without interruptions. If you have kids, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. A full 8 hours of lovely, uninterrupted, time to finish a project. While writing this post, I’ve been asked for milk, a snack, a cuddle, broke up a fight, changed a diaper, yelled, fetched someone another snack, and cleaned up my coffee that was dumped by a flying Hot Wheels car. And that was all in the last twenty minutes. Eight full hours of project time was my version of heaven.

Photowall is giving all of you lovely readers a discount so that you can take a weekend and wallpaper those walls you’ve been starring at for the past 5 months. Scroll to the bottom for discount.

Here’s a few photos of the before. It was…gross. It smelled weird. The previous owners hadn’t cleaned the floor in what seemed like years.

Drumroll please….

When you walk in the room, you see this view of the towel ring and the vanity. As you turn your body to find the toilet – BAM – this floral wallpaper from Chasing Paper hits you in the face like “oh man, two wallpapers in one room!??! I’m stunned by this creative genius.”

Then you look closer. Is that artwork of all butts?? Yes M’am, it is. And is that a print calling me a bitch and telling me that I’m doing great? Yes M’am. You’re welcome. You have now peed and had a mini pep talk. Now go flush, wash your damn hands, open an LLC, and take over the world.

Who’s ready to tackle a wallpapering project? Head on over to Photowall for 25% off with code michelleedgemont25.

Sources:

Vanity: Home Depot, Faucet: Lowes, Geometric Wallpaper: Photowall, Floral wallpaper: Chasing Paper, Tea towel: Maker’s Collective, Art prints: Society6, Floor tile: Tilebar, Sconce: Sazerac Stitches, Toilet paper holder and towel ring: Newmadela,

• 
• 

1 comment. Chime in!

---

2018.

It’s here. 2018. Are you tired of saying Happy New Year to everyone yet? I was ready to dive into my 2018 goals last week, but forgot our nanny is on vacation and then school was canceled because of a blizzard. It was me and Dean and multi showings of Toy Story and Cars 3 in pillow forts on the living room floor consuming absurb amounts of popcorn and hot chocolate. Now that we are back to our regular childcare schedule this week, let’s dive into these 2018 goals together, shall we?

I want to use another word besides goal though. It sounds…so…definitive. Like once we reach it, we will stand upon the mountain top, holding the big goal we finally hit. Then what? What’s the next step? A goal sounds like a stopping point.

“I reached my goal to lose ten pounds.” Ok, now what?

“I sold a $30k floral contract.” Ok, great, but what’s the next step?

But it shouldn’t be. Instead, a goal should be more like a stepping stone to the next thing. And the next. And the next.

I prefer the word objective. What are our objectives this year? Objectives are more fluid. They are juicy. Objectives are free flowing and can be changed, revised, rerouted, turned around at a moment’s notice. Very different then the word goal. An objective is a way of doing business, a mindset, a malleable bit of information that will ebb and flow each week, each month, each quarter.

Michelle Edgemont Design has five main objectives this year that I’m working towards. The last three years after having Dean have been consistent, which I’m proud of (because the to-do list only gets longer as a parent), but haven’t necessarily been years of business growth. We stayed on a straight line in terms of sales, profit, quantity of events, etc. We moved into an amazing studio. I was able to increase our childcare to four days a week. Five during the busy season. We booked some of our largest contracts ever. Now that I’m in the swing of things as a parent, we have a reliable schedule, a studio, and a close knit group of confidants in the industry that I treasure, it’s time for growth.

This is really woo-woo, but writing down objectives, putting them out there into the universe, makes them manifest themselves.

Here goes. Our 2018 list of objectives:

Design and decorate the studio to make it more organized, beautiful, comfortable, and inspiring. 

Any interior designers out there who can help me with this? Please email me! In a true “the cobbler’s son has no shoes scenario”, it’s so much more difficult to design a space for myself then it is to design a space for my clients. I get decision fatigue, afraid to spend my own money, not sure what to buy. Who can help me with this? I want to walk into the space an immediately feel calm and inspired. A high-end, colorful, pretty space with lots of interesting little nooks and smart organization.

HIre a studio assistant 

I’m hiring a studio assistant. As soon as I get the HR stuff organized, I’m putting it out there that I need help. There are a lot of day-to-day to-dos that I don’t personally need to be doing if I want to really grow this company. Starting with: studio organization, cleaning, and inventory. Keep an eye out for the job listing to hopefully go live in February. This person will inventory all of our props, keep stock of things we use a ton of, pull props for weddings, put it all back after events, help process flowers, and manage the cleanliness of the space. Job also comes with unlimited free coffee, snacks, and use of the space for your own personal creative projects in the off hours.

Build my email list and continue to develop the newsletters to be inspiring, informational, and unconventional

The email list is the way of the future. Social media is great. The majority of our clients come from instagram and pinterest, but I don’t own those audiences. At any moment they could go away. All of those lovely followers – POOF – gone. The pudding is in the email list. There is a certain finesse to writing pretty and interesting emails that people actually open. I know that I personally delete a lot of the newsletters I get. The objective here is to educate couples about hiring event designers and florists, building trust within our brand message, gaining a new audience through freebies, and loving on our current subscribers with coupon codes to the Michelle Edgemont Shop, special ebooks, behind the scenes secrets, and more.

Increase the number of amazing wedding planners we work with in order to gain larger floral contracts and continue to nurture the michelle edgemont design style 

Basically, I want to book a few larger contracts this year to really be able to show off what we are capable of. The last few years brought us some clients that were in the position to be able to pay for completely custom, made from scratch, decor for their weddings. Let’s get more of those this year. The majority of these clients were working with amazing, talented wedding planners who know what their clients wanted: the unconventional, kind of weird, totally custom, fun experience of working with Michelle Edgemont Design. Are you a wedding planner with these types of clients? Come to me, my lovely people. Let’s work together to really give your clients the insane, out of this world, wedding full of personalized details that they want.

Educate couples on event design and, especially, floral costs

Look, there is a lot of bad information out there, specially about budgeting for flowers for an event. I get it, it’s impossible to budget for something you’ve never paid for before. Especially something with so much emotion attached to it. This is why I wrote a very very long post about how to hire a wedding florist based on style. This week, I’m posting one about how to hire based on price. NYC might be in a bubble, and although our weddings cost more than the rest of the USA, saving money is often important to clients. The value in what florists do as creatives is important. Clients are buying our art and it’s ability to provide a beautiful environment to their wedding.

 

On a more personal note…

get healthier and stronger

Flowers are heavy. 75lb base plates for chuppahs are heavy. Pushing carts up ramps and through the backend of hotels is heavy. Schlepping buckets of water, crates of candles, and disco balls – yep, heavy. This is a physically demanding job. It requires a lot and my body needs to be ready for it. I can deadlift 250lbs, but it just doesn’t seem like enough when faced with 14 hours on my feet up and down a ladder installing hanging flowers over a giant venue.

Create a comfortable, simple home

Anyone else really starting to feel like all of their stuff is caving in on them? It’s too much. I don’t need twenty different scarfs. Or three ice cream scoops. Or five pairs of black sneakers. The design studio is full of stuff, it’s nice to come home to a place that, well, isn’t. On an entirely contradictory note, we need more artwork. Got any artists with incredible work that I can buy from? I want the walls full of inspiring images.

Go on more date nights

 Adam and I used to drop $200 on dinners out like, hey, just another Tuesday. Last month we spent $200 going to see Star Wars. Yep. Between the movie tickets, Ubers (too cold), snacks, and babysitter. Bye bye two hundos. How are these date nights going to happen? Be strict with our budget, find a few more babysitter options in the neighborhood, and come up with cheaper nights out. Anyone know a good sitter in Brooklyn who wants to make money just putting our well-mannered child to bed and watching netflix?

What are your 2018 objectives? Business or personal. Comment over on this instagram post and tell me! I want to know. 

• 
• 

Chime in!

---

Gifts for people who love geometrics

Gift guide for people who love geometrics. This is my favorite gift guide. As I’m sure you can see by the branding on this site, I have a soft spot for geometric anything. The clean lines, the negative space, and the versatility of geometric shapes let you easily blend this aesthetic into any decor plan.

This past year alone, my studio has produced an oversized geometric installation (to be seen in Martha Stewart next year), a colorful geometric escort board, 3D geodome table numbers, laser cut hexagon place cards, and brought numerous geometric lanterns to a variety of events.

Are you a geometric lover too?

 

1. Geometric Lamp 2. Plant Hangers 3. French Press 4. Coasters 5. Geometric Bin 6. Wall Shapes 7. Faceted Terrariums 8. Iphone Case 9. Folded Vase 10. Geometric Necklace
   11. Crop Top 12. Earrings 13. Keds 14. Geometric Socks

 

• 
• 

Chime in!

---