Kitchen & Bathroom Design Blog

With the holiday season in full swing, many of us will have more guests around our homes than usual.  We tend to do many things to make family and friends feel welcome when they visit during the holidays, like preparing special treats or offering them a cup of holiday cheer.  You may also take extra care in cleaning and preparing your home, decorating for the holidays, and making sure there is ample space for guests to sit and relax. 

Your kitchen and bath design style can also make a big difference in making sure your guests fully enjoy themselves.  For example, an open plan kitchen and living area, with an island containing both food preparation and seating, allows guests to interact with you comfortably while you are whipping up holiday delights.  A well-placed beverage center helps to ensure guests always have access to coffee or other beverages in a designated area that does not interfere with food preparation. 

Likewise, a well-designed powder room can make a big difference in helping your guests feel at home.  This often forgotten little room becomes very important when you have a lot of visitors around.  There are a number of elements that you can incorporate into your bathroom design to help ensure that your guests feel welcome. 

Lighting: A multi-layered lighting design is an important component of any bathroom design.  As an extension of the party atmosphere, the powder room should be able to have stylish, dramatic lighting.  At the same time, it is also a space for guests to freshen up, re-apply make-up, or check to be sure nothing is in their teeth before returning to the dinner table.  A chandelier or elegant sconces can add a stylish flair to your powder room, while a dimmer switch allows you to set the mood with soft lighting and still let guests turn up the lights if they need to see more clearly.

Mirrors:  Include a well-placed mirror to give your guests a suitable place to see themselves while checking their make-up.  This is also an opportunity to create a conversation piece in your bathroom remodeling project, by including a one-of-a-kind mirror that adds a piece of your personality to the powder room.  The custom-designed mirror pictured to the right was incorporated into this bathroom design in Yardley, PA, and is framed by tiles from the local Moravian Tile Works.

Vanities and Countertops: While you may not need to place things down in your powder room on a day to day basis, your guests will require someplace to put their personal items.  Providing a vanity with countertop space allows guests to make themselves at home by having ample space to put down their purse or wallet and to lay out toiletries.

Storage:  Guests will feel much more comfortable in your home if they know they have towels, extra toilet paper, or even a few toiletries readily available in the powder room.  In addition to storage in the vanity, built-in storage niches like the one pictured here can be a handy place to keep extra toilet paper or other things guests may need.  These niches provide a purpose-built storage solution to keep your powder room neat while also having these items visible so guests can easily find them.

Designing the perfect powder room is a great way to make sure your guests feel comfortable in your home.  Visit our bathroom design gallery here for more ideas or contact us today!