When your home has only one bathroom, it’s the master bath, guest bath, and powder room all rolled into one. Keeping it attractive for guests and functional for you on a daily basis can be a challenge. And many of us don’t really want to stop at merely attractive and functional. What would make the only bath in the house or apartment luxurious? Here are my secrets to making an all-in-one bath overdeliver.
1. Keep a Simple Color Palette
While a seldom-used powder room can be a great place to go overboard with color, your workhorse master bathroom doubling as a guest bath will do better with a lighter touch, especially for creating a luxurious feeling.
A simple color palette of neutrals—shades of gray or shades of beige and brown—creates a relaxing space for you on a daily basis. That doesn’t mean your walls have to be boring. You can add a textured wallpaper or a subtle painted wall pattern, or you can alternate the shades of your walls from one to the next—for example, cream on one wall and light taupe on the wall next to it. (See the Contrasting Walls section below.) The key here is to avoid a fun-house of jarring color contrasts.
Sometimes you have materials that are too expensive to replace in the bathroom, such as tile, cabinets, and counters. If this is true for you, look for neutral linens, accessories, and accent pieces that can blend well with the colors you must work with. For aqua-blue tiles, I recommend using gray tones to soften the blue. For a pink formica counter top, I would use off-white and beige hues to create an overall peaches and cream effect.
2. Get the Lighting Right
Changing the lighting in a bathroom can be expensive, since the light fixtures are usually built in. If you have the option to make changes, however, lighting makes a huge difference in how you experience your bath.
Here are a few tips:
- Light the sides of your face. Lighting either side of a mirror reduces shadows cast by overhead lights, creating a more attractive view of your face. This enhanced lighting will not only help you see your features more clearly, making your morning routine easier, but it will likely also make you feel better about your appearance.
- Use dimmer switches. I installed dimmers on my bathroom light switches and have never regretted this decision. During the winter, when your first light in the morning is in your bathroom, a dimmer can save your eyes from a daily retinal burn. (Not all dimmers and dimmable bulbs are compatible, though, so make sure to coordinate.)
- Similarly, separate the bathroom light from the fan if at all possible. Exhaust fan lights will always be central ceiling fixtures that cast an unpleasant and harsh light over the bathroom.
3. Create a Contrasting Wall
If you’re able to create contrast on one wall with a different color, a wall of tile, or possibly a wall treatment or covering, this can enhance the style quotient of your bathroom.
Here are some ideas to consider:
- Use a darker color on the smallest wall. Bathrooms are often long and thin. If the wall opposite the door has the smallest dimensions, using a color a few shades darker than the other walls will help the room feel more square in its proportions.
- Use a contrasting color on the wall opposite the mirror. If you don’t have the option to make the small wall a different shade, consider changing the color of the wall opposite the mirror. Since the mirror frames your face, you will see your reflection attractively set in a background color that contrasts nicely with the color of the wall surrounding the mirror.
- Paint or paper a wall to add interest. A paint treatment of striping, stamping, hatching, or sponging can give your small space more interest. I recommend using a subtle palette with little contrast (as mentioned above in secret #1), so as to avoid overwhelming a small space with too much color. Wallpapers or contact paper can be useful for this, but keep in mind that bathrooms get humid and wallpaper, if it’s not sturdy enough or is applied poorly, is likely to bubble and peel.
4. Replace the Cabinet Handles
Bathroom cabinet handles may be the most-used handles in the house. Swapping them out for sturdy, comfortable, and attractive ones is a good decor investment. Even if you are a renter, you can change the existing hardware now and swap it back when you leave (assuming you keep the same bolt holes!).
Be sure to match your metals. Match your cabinet handles to the sink and shower faucets, the toilet flush handle, and the door handle and hinges. This is especially important for small bathrooms. Although mixing metals is popular, this technique works better in larger spaces. If the other metals in your bathroom are already mixed, choose the most prevalent of them to match with your cabinet handles.
5. Be a Bathroom Minimalist
My standard measure of luxury baths is a hotel bathroom. Hotel bathrooms have very few things—just the essential soaps, paper products, and towels. Follow their lead!
Try to reduce the bathroom necessaries you keep in arm’s reach to only the items you use daily. Move occasional use items to lower drawers or a linen closet.
Being a bathroom minimalist also helps your guests. The only things a guest needs are soap, a hand towel, tissues, and toilet paper. If only those things are out when guests use your bathroom, it eases the awkwardness of invading someone’s private space.
I share more tips on minimalist decorating in this video.
6. Store It All
Once you’ve reduced your personal bathroom items to the minimum, you may still have a lot! So how do you clear all the surfaces—the floor, the toilet tank cover, and the sink counter top? The goal is to have no bathroom necessaries poking their heads out at you, except maybe from a tidy basket or box.
Can you do this in a single-bath apartment? Absolutely, but it takes planning. You must have a place to put all your necessary bathroom items so they are not in view. It’s also important to develop the habit of putting things where they belong every day, rather than leaving them on the counter.
Here are some tips to help you manage overflow items:
- Group your bathroom necessaries by process. These processes might include hair-care, exfoliating, moisturizing, or taking a bubble bath. Whatever your semi-regular bathroom rituals are, store all the supplies for each activity in one place so they stay together.
- Move some personal care rituals to another room. If you find things still overflow the bathroom vanity or medicine cabinet, consider whether you can take some personal care activities out of the bathroom. Are there tasks you perform in the bathroom that could be done in your bedroom at a vanity? (Again, set your vanity up for decor success by organizing and storing everything.)
- Use a caddy. Pull it out when you’re getting ready in the morning or at night. Make a habit of putting it back where it belongs when not in use, perhaps under the sink, in a linen closet, or—if space is tight—in the bathtub-shower.
I have a video about making your spaces more functional here.
7. Use White Towels
Solid white plush towels instantly convey luxury. You can often find these at discount or overstock stores. If you use only white towels, you’ll never have to worry that replacement towels won’t match your originals when they wear out!
Here are some ideas for keeping your white towels pristine:
- Stock extra towels. Keep enough towels on hand so that you can throw soiled ones in the wash and still have clean ones ready for use.
- Wash them regularly! Don’t wait until your towels look dirty to wash them. Use a spot cleaner on even minor spots.
- Use bleach carefully. I’ve read that bleach can react with body fluids (like sweat) and create a stain. The recommendation from laundry experts is to wash your whites with detergent first and, if needed, run the wash cycle again with bleach and detergent.
8. Use Natural Materials
As you minimize the number of items on display in your bathroom, consider using natural materials for the few items that you keep in sight. Where could you use stone, wood, woven grasses, or glass? Try adding a soap dish, a tray for towels, or a tissue box cover in one of these natural materials.
If you’re working with existing fixtures that you can’t change, like an apartment bathroom, your best strategy is to to contrast with the existing finishes, rather than try to match them. What do I mean? A marble soap dish would look great on a plain white formica counter. But I wouldn’t use the same marble soap dish on a plastic countertop that is designed to imitate marble. The similar patterns will likely clash and make the overall effect worse rather than better. Use a solid-colored white ceramic soap dish on a faux marble countertop instead.
When the materials are across the room from each other, however, similar colors and patterns can work. A medium-toned faux wood sink cabinet, for example, can be complemented by a medium-toned natural wood towel rack across the room from it.
9. Keep It Clean!
My first bathroom remodel took much longer than expected. However, the time I had to go without a master bath was a useful learning experience. Why? Because I made a deal with myself that the new master bathroom must be cleaned daily—or else I wasn’t going to use it. Part of the deal was that I had to keep the guest bathroom clean during the renovation. By the time the new master bath was ready, I had developed a daily cleaning habit.
There are actually two steps to this daily cleaning habit. The first step is what I mentioned above: Always put everything away after you use it. Nothing gets left out. If you don’t have a place to store all your toiletries, make one.
The second step is pretty simple: I use a prepackaged wipe to wipe down the faucet, countertop, and sink. This takes care of 90% of the cleaning that needs to happen in a bathroom. (Personally, I’ve had good success with either Method wipes or Windex wipes.)
10. Include Art
Don’t overlook art for your bathroom. To maintain an ambience of luxury and simplicity, I recommend that you avoid dramatic and high contrast art. Instead, choose art that matches or subtly accents the color palette of your bathroom.
Match up your art to the size of your wall. If you have smaller pieces, put them on the wall with the door. A tall, narrow piece could work well above a toilet. A larger horizontal piece might be good for a long wall across from a toilet and sink. Take care with large art pieces. You might want to test a large piece of art in the bathroom before committing to it. Make sure it complements the room without taking over the entire space, especially if your bathroom is small.
If you need more ideas of what kind of art to put on your walls (whether in the bathroom or not!) I have a whole series on art styles broken down by where you can buy them. Have a look here!
Do You Live in a One-Bathroom Home?
I hope this list gave you some inspiration on how to make your one bathroom feel more luxurious for both you and your guests. Do you have more questions about bathroom decor? Leave me a comment below!