Most pedestals have a raised rim/border to discourage residual water from seeping outside of the sink area. If water splashes heavily during use, I'd be more concerned about water damage on the floor than any vertical surface. Sink against painted wall is fine. Sink will be anchored to wall regardless of wall material.

What about using beadboard for the walls?

Marisa, yes, the sink is bolted/anchored to the wall. For me, I wouldn't caulk a pedestal for aesthetic reasons. It's a personal choice. You can always re-caulk/re-grout if the mildew is to the point where it's not cleanable anymore.

Beadboard is ok as long as the substrate material is reasonably sturdy for the mounting bolts.

marisany what a coincidence. I live in a 1936 center entrance colonial. We are in the process of re-doing our powder room and just put down a marble mosaic basketweave floor (which I should be sealing right now!) and will be putting in (or rather putting back) the pedestal sink that was in there before. Prior to this re-do, we had paint behind the pedestal sink and a chair rail with wallpaper above it. I never had any problem at all with water on the wall and there were certainly penty of splashes from my 2 boys through the years. That paint was an oil based faux finish but my kitchen backsplash is an eggshell latex and that takes much more abuse and is fine. We did not caulk where the sink met the wall.

We just put in beadboard so that will now be the material behind the sink - that will not be caulked either.

"The bath is currently tiled in the shower/tub area and around the entire room up to chair rail height. I was going to replicate this, but friends advised me to tile only in the shower/tub area."

Your friends advise appears to be their personal preference. This is a downgrade in my opinion.

You can tile the entire room to chair rail height. I would highly advise this. Tile is best surface for behind your pedestal sink, as well as the toilet too. Many new development homes are not installing tile around the room to save money.

dlm2000, another coincidence: I have two boys, too, and they are messy! I'm glad to hear that your painted wall survived well. What basketweave did you use? Did you put a border tile around the edges?

I love the look of beadboard, and may use it when we do our large bathroom (I'll start planning as soon as this is finished). But this bathroom is so tiny that I don't think I would like it there.

mminkous, thank you for the information on caulking. Our existing pedestal sink was caulked by a plumber at one point; he said that it had to be done. It looks awful, and it grows mold. I will definitely not have it put there again.

tom_p, I think I probably will tile the entire room. But I'm still not sure. I'm using Grazia Essenze tile in white, and will do an accent strip in the tub/shower area in neoclassical with listello above and below, subway tiles below the strip, square tiles above, either straight or diagonal.

Marisa, when I finished one of my kids full baths I tiled to chair height. It looks great...and even slightly fools me into thinking it's bulletproof to anything my little devils can dish out.

Couple of things...it will add quite a bit of time and energy to your project to do all that tiling. Also, it will add fairly substantially to your budget. I'm not trying to dissuade you, just give you a heads up.

Finally, regarding the pedestal, when the walls are open add some 2X6 blocking to the wall for the bolts on the pedestal. This is definitely a hard learned peice of advice. Installing a pedestal can be fussy, especially if doing the install solo. That blocking would have been a godsend the first time I tried it.

spanky, Thanks for the advice. I am using a contractor - neither my husband nor I have much in the way of skills, or the time to do something like this. I will ask him about the blocking - but he probably knows this trick.

I went to the tile store today, and found that the white tile I was planning to use is a stark, glaring white. The line has an off-white that I think I like better. Getting off topic; I think I will post a thread on this.

I am now leaning against tiling around the room to chair rail height. The salesman at the tile store thought that tiling only in the bath/shower area would look better, because the room is so small. He thought that breaking up the area would make it look smaller.

tiling around small bathroom to chair rail will not make it appear to look smaller. Horizontal line of focus/ rail/ tile /wall division will make it appear wider. Dark coloring of tile and paint will make room appear small.