Your guest bathroom, or powder room, presents a great place to start with your home makeover. This small room takes less money and effort to decorate than your larger rooms. Plus, you get a chance to develop you personal home interior design skills without committing to a huge project.

Because guests view this little space privately, visitors take more time to notice the interior design details. For this reason, you want to showcase great design to make a good impression. Also, hospitality shines in a well-appointed guest bath where it takes just a couple of splurges on extravagant fixtures to make a huge impact that your guests will remember. Company may not remember your living room walls because they're focusing on the people in the space, but they will remember your powder room.

What if you don't have a powder room and guests use your children's bathroom?

Children appreciate being treated as adults and don't need a childish bathroom. Don't use juvenile-patterned wallpaper or accessories.

Keep bathtub toys in the bathtub (in one of those plastic-coated wire baskets) and hang a ceiling to floor curtain in front of the bathtub. This curtain can be hung in front of the normal plastic liner from the ceiling. For small bathrooms, where the daylight comes in over the bathtub, use white or another light-emitting fabric. A curtain made of soft gauze or cotton does double duty: it softens the space with fabric while masking the bathtub, which is not a guest-bath feature.

Powder Room Basics

To finish any proper powder room, you need a great sink, faucet, and cabinet with a large mirror, plus the toilet. If you're working on a budget, look for sinks on sale at a warehouse store or at Habitat for Humanitys thrift store, ReStore. Don't buy a poorly constructed cabinet; look for an antique dresser or buffet that spans the wall space.

Dramatic powder rooms emphasize remarkable mirrors. You may be tempted to keep the ugly wall-mounted medicine cabinet, but if you truly want an impressive guest bath, hang a spectacular mirror instead.

Store toothbrushes and other necessities in the cabinet below and move medicines to the kitchen, out or reach of children.

If you need to replace the toilet, which only needs to be functional because the other details will outshine it, look for a toilet which blends in with your home's style.

Powder Room Makeover Tips

Besides the bathroom fixtures, your flooring, walls, and ceiling offer the most economical home makeover opportunities. Because of the small area, you can use large ceramic tiles that mimic stone, marble, or even wood. Also, linoleum comes in a multitude of interesting patterns and has the benefit of being warmer to bare feet than tile.

The area that makes the greatest interior design impact, the walls and ceiling, give the best place to have fun with your home makeover. Decorative paint finishes, like subtle layering of glazes, add the designers touch without the expense. Choose colors that harmonize with the rest of your home to reinforce your color theme. Use color psychology to make your powder room present a cooling oasis or a warming shelter.

Use an essential oil diffuser to help your powder room smell as good as it looks. Avoid unnatural sprays that cause irritation to those with sensitivities.

The final interior design detail, exquisite lighting, doesn't need to kill your budget. Perhaps your dining chandelier would make a better statement in your bathroom than it does in your dining room. If you life in a climate with high humidity and hot summers, a ceiling fan helps keep the room cool. Look for a fan with lights that point upward. Lights shining down on you in a small space feel over-powering. Also, use wall sconces on either side of the vanity mirror instead of the usual builders light fixture above the mirror.

Finishing touches, guest towels, hard soaps, and lotions make your guests and yourself feel pampered. Choose generous, thick, and soft hand towels to add softness to an otherwise hard surface space.

Because people feel more comfortable in smaller bathrooms which offer privacy, a guest bathroom offers the perfect place to practice your design skills. Splurge a little on lavish wall finishes and guest towels to showcase your home's interior design.

Copyright 2005 Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.)

Jeanette Joy Fisher

Jeanette Fisher, author of over ten books, including university textbooks and encyclopedia articles on color psychology, has researched the effects of the environment on emotions for over 15 years. Jeanette has appeared on internationally syndicated radio and television and teaches Design Psychology and real estate investing.

She offers free information on interior design, real estate investing, and mortgage credit help from her websites. Jeanette Fisher's books, available from her websites and from Amazon, help real estate investors, home sellers, and home makers. To find out the four steps for beginning real estate investors, five ways to use interior design for home staging, or how to makeover your home for joy, visit Jeanette Fisher.com. And while there, don't forget to subscribe to her free newsletters.

Jeanette has so many websites because her name can be spelled so many ways.