Remodeling

Freshen Up Your Powder Room

Give a small bath lots of personality with decisions and careful planning.

Photo: Southern Accents, Erica George Dines

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Make a Statement

The best powder rooms serve basic functions of a bathroom, to be sure, but they do so with grace and charm. Their small footprints have no correlation to their overall importance. "The powder room is one space where items might be examined up close," says designer Mary Evelyn McKee . Design it well, and you put your best foot forward.

The trick is to turn the challenges of designing a powder room -- the small size, the prosiac functionality, the all-too-common lack of windows -- into opportunities. Use the space to display art that is better viewed at close range, to experiment with layered lighting, or to hang a striking antique mirror.

Above all, make a statement.