The Peach Powder Room

Posted on: Sep 15, 2017

When you live with a colour for a while it kind of gets under your skin, you absorb it, it enters your pores like a dose of smog and clings to you. That’s what’s happened with peach, it’s found a small place deep within and left it’s peachy imprint all over my vital organs. There wasn’t a chance that I could delete it entirely, there was always a plan to keep a shrine to the Palace’s peachy past and it didn’t take long to work out where that was going to be.

50 shades of peach…

Amidst all of the fifty shades of peach tat, the swags, the carpets, the wall lights and the panelling, lay an absolute peach of a find. Like an oversized treasure chest, the downstairs bog housed a complete gem. An incredible marble sink in the perfect shade of, you guessed it, peach. Now, I know I was wrong but initially I hated this monstrosity. My confused mind was distracted by the mother load of 80’s going on around it. Other than the sink there was nothing instagram-able about this room, in fact it committed a number of interior crimes, the worst of which was a hideous green deep pile carpet. Permeated by countless particles of pensioners pee, this was quickly disposed of, which left the sink to shine in all its glory and ignite a little spark from within.

Thus the Peach Powder Room was born…

No natural light…

Sacrificially, the room gave up its only natural light source (its window) to the beast of an extension to its rear, so the first problem to tackle was the light. Mr Peach campaigned for the ‘painting it white’ approach to adding brightness whereas I was keen to embrace the dark. What’s the point in painting a room white when it will only reflect the dark and be dull. There was less than no discussion before I just bought the Farrow & Ball Pitch Black and told the decorator to get jiggy and paint out the woodwork too.

The whole concept of the room hinged around an epic nod to the peach. It was utterly not enough to just paint part of it a colour, I needed a statement pattern on the walls, the ceilings were high and the room could totally take it. Those of you that have ever searched ‘peach’ on wallpaper direct (and I’m guessing it’s not the site’s most popular search term), will know that the results are pretty darned sparse and so I had to spread my search wings wide.

Four beauties made it to the shortlist:

Flamingos from wallpaper direct
Brooklyn tin tiles from house of Sloane
Terrazo from Daniela Tasca and
Versailles from Cole and Son

Ménage à trois…

The Brooklyn tins took the gold medal due to its perfect position on the peach side of pink and its marriage to Pitch Black required a threesome flooring match. This came in the form of the Kimono tile from marakech design – a saucy monochrome hexagonal number that only good old Ned was brave enough to tackle. [If you don’t know who Ned is, you need to read this post!].

Now, I bloody love Ned but thank the interior Lord that I posted this sneaky update on Instagram because imagine if I hadn’t? A whopper of a thank you to @louise10heart for spotting the Ned slip up here pre grouting! Can you imagine how crazy annoying that would have been if it had gone unnoticed!? I began to seriously reconsider Ned’s previous upgrade of biscuit from a bourbon to a cookie!

The ceiling I chose to paint out in peach although this came under the disguise of Heirloom Apricot from Valspar, a decision which caused the very sharp intake of breath from our decorator. It brings me back to what I harp on at all the time, if it doesn’t work or you hate it, you can paint over it, it’s that simple. Live a little folks!

Lighting the Peach Powder Room…

Then came the exciting part, the lighting and in a room with no windows, it’s truly important. Those of you that follow my Instagram will know that I’m rather partial to a touch of neon. Actually I lie, to me there is no space that can’t be improved with a dash of it. I’m obsessed and would have a subtle flash of it in everywhere if my budget allowed. Thankfully I raided the bin lid’s piggy bank whilst they were sleeping and put it towards quite frankly, one of my all time favourite pieces within these walls. My ridiculously cute neon peach from Bag & Bones – a light that makes you feel like you’re OUT out on a big night even when you’re simply doing you’re early morning business. It’s pretty much like I always feel that whatever time of day it is, this mildly middle-ageing body is totally working it and perpetually ready to fire out a twerk or two. [Disclaimer: by “firing out a twerk”, I totally mean creaking whilst gingerly elevating myself from the throne on the way to the kettle and the biscuit tin (via a handwash at the peach marble sink obvs)].

Some sensible lighting too…

As much as I love neon, the Peach Powder Room needed a little sensible lighting to add to its mix, which meant a trip to my ‘go to’ lighting destination. I adore Yorkshire and one of the reasons I do is the amazing Red Brick Mill. This huge converted mill houses some of the North’s most stylish interiors concessions which includes a Heals (the only one North of London). As much as I want to keep this info to myself I feel it’s time to share. This concession has THE most amazing bargain lighting department, it seems there is always a Tom Dixon bargain to be had which I have taken complete advantage of. These gorgeous cell lights were bought for a fraction of their full price and they cast amazing patterns next to the rose tinted junk shop find mirror. To compliment the rest of the lighting, the room needed a statement pendant. This gorgeous beaded chandelier was from Debenhams and I think it does a rather lovely job of well, shedding light and holding its own in a rather loud room.

A few faux botanicals and a ‘peachy’ print from Atelier Big Jon complete the room and that my friends is just about it.

I get that this space is pretty marmite, I understand that you’ll either love it or hate it but if you can’t go bold in one of the smallest rooms in the house then where can you?

Peachy keen…

So, after banishing the colour from every other room, I’m safe in the knowledge that when pantone announce Peach as colour of the year (which in my totally under qualified opinion I’m predicting btw), I at least have this one to hang out in.