My house was built in the mid-90s, the era of when pink and orange-y oak was on trend. We bought our house as a foreclosure, and pretty much nothing had been updated since it was built. This was totally ok with us, since we wanted a house to renovate to our own taste. When choosing what to redo first, we had to put things on a list of priorities, because it all needed fixing. Bathrooms came first on that list. We did our master bathroom first because it was in the worst shape. Next on the list was the powder bathroom. The toilet had obviously been leaking because the laminate flooring had a big black stain around the left side of the toilet. Gross. The layout of the bathroom was awkward, as well. When you walked in, there was little space to get in and close the door due to a huge counter and the toilet being on the wall facing the door. It seemed like poor planning, but I guess if we had wanted a whole bunch of counter space to display things in our powder bathroom, it would have been great. We did not, so things had to change completely. It also was not well lit, even though it had the iconic 8 bulb bar light, trying its best to make it bright. Last, was the ceiling height. They had made a drywall detail, similar to a tray ceiling, around the walls where it met the ceiling. However, it came down a foot, almost touching the top of the door frame. So, this made it feel like it had very low ceilings, even though it was an 8 foot ceiling. I drew up some sketches of how I wanted things to look, and off we went finding materials to fit the design.
Here are my almost before shots and a picture of the drywall detail after it was torn off. (I got eager again! But I remembered to snap photos before it was totally stripped down to the studs):
31 Downing Street 