Our Cowboy Powder Room Reveal

Hi! I hope you are having the best day. I already am because today I’m sharing the powder room reveal in our home. I’ve been at this room for months slowly making the decision between paint, wallpaper and leaving it alone. It feels so good to finally have made choices.

Before and Why I’m Redoing This Bathroom

Snip from video of our initial walk through in this home

Photograph: Brie Williams for Country Living in 2021, Styling: Rachel Rivers

In the time that we’ve lived here, this room has lived several lives. We upgraded this bathroom when we first moved in during our time with Country Living Magazine. (More about that here if you are curious). During that time we changed all the fixtures, floor andadded wallpaper.

It was in a stable state until two years ago when we threw our siblings a graduation party. At the end of it, we could hear water running in our house with no fixtures on. Turns out there was a leak behind the wall in this powder room. After, the plumber made three sizable holes in the walls, we decided to start fresh. While we loved the look, the wallpaper in here was a remnant from our previous house. It was meant to line a closet. I had just enough to finish this space the first time and none to spare post-holes. Thankfully, I wasn’t married to it and I set out to find something that wowed me.

Cue me looking for over a year for something that wowed me. I have got to learn to be more prescriptive in the future. But, I finally landed on a favorite.

Afters of the bathroom

Fixtures

The fixtures in here are only a couple years old from our first round with this space. I used my favorite potty, Tresham by Kohler. I’ve used it here and here and have recommended it to countless folks in real life. It’s just a good pot.

As for the sink, boy oh boy. I fell in love with a sold out Restoration Hardware console sink and spent the better part of a year tracking it down. I found one in the right size and the right finish on Facebook Marketplace for a song. Turns out it was in Delaware. Thankfully, a family friend was driving down from Delaware the next day and offered to pick it up for us. (Max, if you’re reading this, you and your husband are real ones.) And while this exactly sink is sold out, this is the next closest.

Wallpaper Choice

I fell in love with this wallpaper during a 2am fixation. I was going a completely different direction until my eyes laid on this paper by Mind the Gap. I was checking out 30 seconds after the page fully loaded. I don’t know that I have ever talked about it here but I have over on Instagram; I have a long standing love affair with denim. Denim is a perfect example of something that is not only quintessential Americana but African Americana personified as well.

Cotton and Indigo are the key ingredients for denim. There are sources that tie indigo in particular to South Carolina as a cash crop during the slave trade in places where the rice could not be grown. And well, hopefully you know the history of cotton in the United States. Enslaved Blacks, descendants of West Africans were knowledgable of processing and dyeing the cotton denim that became blue jeans.

Not only that but enslaved Blacks also wore them because it was one of the few fabrics that could bear the brunt of nonstop brutal labor. They wore them so much that blue jeans were actually referred to as “Negro cloth“. I say all that to say, denim is steeped in African American history and it’s those kinds of subtle touches that we choose to incorporate our home as an homage to our living Black History.  

This denim wallpaper in particular is called Woodstock Boro by MindtheGap. It’s a play on a Japanese textile, Boro, “boroboro” which means something tattered or repaired. It references naturally hand woven materials -linen, cotton, hemp, etc.- that create this beautiful layered effect. I knew I needed to have it as soon as I laid eyes on it.

Cowboy Ford

My sister-in-law saw this bathroom and immediately said, “this looks like Marcus’ bedroom growing up”. That makes perfect sense because my husband wanted to be a cowboy as a child. Picture Marcus with a tiny lasso and boots with spurs. Actually you don’t have to because I snagged a few pictures out of family photo albums for this space. Pair them with my favorite Mark Maggiori print, “Once Upon A Time” and this small room was headed in the right direction.

(If this piece feels familiar, it is. It previously lived in our guest room but was dethroned in favor of a dresser needing that wall space.) My love of denim comes with a firm love for Black cowboys. I will spare you two history lessons in one post but just know, Black Cowboys forever in this house. What a time for a family to have that particular hyperfixation. *Puts the needle down on Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter record.*

A Touch of Marigold

Yellow is my favorite color. It’s not one I use to design often because I prefer not to blind us with it but I love it deeply. This felt like the perfect place to use it since the color calls back to the cowboy painting. So imagine my surprise when I opened the front door one day to these scallop trimmed hand towels from Weezie. They sent them because they saw a comment on a post that yellow is my favorite color. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that particular variety of delight.

They’re whimsical, fun and most importantly functional. I never feel guilty spoiling our guest with Weezie towels because they’re super plush, absorbent and wash so well. And since I already had them, these Pooky yellow pleated lampshades were a no brainer for their perfect match. Full disclosure, I tried a DIY of these shades and they were not nearly as nice as these were for this price. Maybe I’ll share that fail one day but for now, loving the ones I selected. I will warn you, Pooky’s lampshades only fit their lamps.

But, I used a small washer and nut right at the top of these sconces’ candelabras to hold them up properly. No one can tell the difference and they look perfect atop these polished nickel sconces. Another exquisite facebook Marketplace find. With the easy exchange of $100, I was skipping down the sidewalk with brand new Visual Comfort lighting. The set that previously lived in this space now live in the living room. A nice little game of musical chairs.

Full List of Sources

• Toilet: Kohler
• Sink: sold out Restoration Hardware(similar Pottery Barn)
• Faucet: Kingston Brass (over half off today)
• Wallpaper: MindtheGap
• Cowboy Art: Once Upon a Time by Mark Maggiori
• Hand towels: Weezie (gifted)
• Lampshades: Pooky lighting
• Sconce: sold out Visual Comfort (similar)
• Mirror: Amazon
• Trashcan: DIY with scrap of leather
• Rattan Tray: Amazon (3 piece set)