I put an almost black slate-look porcelain tile on the floor in my son's bath...I LOVE it!! It is so easy to clean and never shows dirt (the grout is a dark grey.) His vanity is maple stained espresso, and his countertop is typhoon Bordeaux granite. Completely bullet-proof and hides boy mess very well.

However, since you don't know the sex of your future children yet, I probably wouldn't choose that exact combination...it is a little dark for a girl. I'd probably do the slate tile with white painted cabs and some sort of light grey top. That way, it can easily be jazzed up with bright colors for small children, but look spa-like and sophisticated now. Don't use white tile on the floor...my dd has white tile & she is just too messy for that.

We are mid-remodel of our hall bathroom, which is also the kids' bathroom. I chose white tile walls throughout--including wainscoting. I like tile wainscoting because it is so much tougher than paint. I went with 6 x 6 with a grey pencil liner above and 4 x 4 white tile above the pencil liner in the shower. The floor is 12 x 24 medium grey with matching grout. IME, medium colors show the least dirt and the less grout to clean the better. The walls will be pale grey and the vanity will be a bright blue (benj. Moore paddington blue).

eta. The vanity top will be a dark grey engineered quartz. Since this bathroom will someday be a teenage girl's bathroom, I wanted it to be as close to indestructible as I could get. I figured that meant engineered quartz or granite for the countertop and since I wanted grey, my GC said it would be a lot easier to find an engineered quartz remnant in grey.

Thank you! Bathrooms sound lovely. :) Is a bathroom in the brown/tan/beige family (medium tone like crl_ mentioned) not suitable/popular? I'm hoping to stay away from a white vanity but don't want the bathroom too dark.

Grey has been pretty dominate for a while now. I honestly think browns should be making a reappearance as the more popular neutral soon--I have said that here before though and got shouted down so I may be wrong. Have you looked through houzz bathroom photos for inspiration?

Gosh, my expedience with matte dark grey floor tile is soooo different; every water drop shows up! The floor looks perpetually dirty just from water spots. Maybe my floor is darker than PPs, it is definitely charcoal or light black. But I loooove the drama of that floor, it's completely unexpected and the boys love it too. They also have a black vanity, so dust and water spots and toothpaste drips all show up. The counter and sink are both white, which also show dirt but it's also easy for my kids to see what messes they need to wipe up.

Mid-tones hide dirt the best. And mottled/patterned floor add additional camouflage. With my kids, if the thing they are cleaning looks clean, then they don't understand it still might be dirty. In their bathroom (also the main bathroom) they can always see the mess I'm asking them to clean up.

(The floor looks darker in the picture than it is IRL).

Honestly, I would not choose finishes based on the possibility of hiding kid's messes, especially in a bathroom. My kids clean their own bathroom and if the messes were not obvious, it would be harder for them to know what to clean. The one thing I would say in a bathroom for kids though is to not have a huge mirror around the sink. I remember looking at a show house once where they had this giant trough of a sink and a mirror that took up the entire wall and all I could envision was all the water splattering on it with kids brushing their teeth, washing hands, etc.

Thank you for all the comments/ideas

Would it be bad to have natural maple cabinets for this bathroom?