Bathroom Ideas
27. Floating double vanities. We’re seeing a rise in popularity of double floating vanities among the Houzz community. And it’s easy to see why. Floating a vanity frees up floor space to give the appearance of more room, and makes cleaning the floor easier than with a furniture-style vanity with legs that can trap dust.
Inside the Shower If you’re sensitive to the cold and would rather have every shower accouterment at your fingertips the instant you turn the water off, a towel rack inside the shower stall might be right for you. If you want to pull this off, it helps to have either a longer-than-standard-size shower stall, or a rainfall shower that will be less likely to splash and get your dry towel wet.
Outside the Shower If you locate your towel rack or bar outside the shower, placing it close to the door has advantages. It minimizes the risk of slipping and falling from leaning out of the stall, and it reduces the time you have to spend outside the shower stall’s steamy cocoon. Be sure to have your shower door mounted to open in the most convenient direction for reaching the towels.
One option is to keep your towel mount integral to the shower. If you’re lucky, all the heat and steam against the glass may warm your towel in the process. Here, a pivoting door swings on a hinge so the bather can access a towel without having to leave the steamy environs and without dripping any water outside the shower room. Naturally, this type of hinged door works best when you have room to spare since its radius projects into the stall.
White and Gray Are Top Color Picks Homeowners renovating their master bathrooms are showing a strong preference for neutral tones in the major elements of the room: vanity, counter, flooring and walls. Gray and white are the top color choices overall. Here’s how the colors break down by bathroom feature: Vanity. White is the top color choice for upgraded vanities (34%), followed by wood (29%), gray (16%) and brown (6%). Counter. White is also the No. 1 pick for upgraded countertops (46%), followed by multicolored (18%), gray (12%) and beige (10%). Flooring. Gray is the top choice for upgraded master bathroom flooring outside the shower (31%), followed by white (19%), beige (15%) and multicolored (13%). Notably, white is gaining popularity among renovating homeowners, up 3 percentage points from 2018, when 16% of floors upgraded as part of a master bathroom renovation were white. Walls. For walls outside the shower, gray is the most popular choice (29%), with white a close second (27%), followed by beige (13%) and blue (13%). Shower walls. For upgraded walls within the shower, the most popular colors are white (40%), gray (20%) and beige (14%).
8. Porcelain Slab Showers Tile is a popular material for showers. It’s durable and offers lots of options to bring in color and texture. But the idea of maintaining all those grout lines turns a lot of homeowners off. Designer Brooke Brown of L&B Limited Co. is getting a lot of requests for using porcelain slabs instead. The approach minimizes grout lines while still offering durability and visual interest.
Tile. Black porcelain tile with a natural look covers the floor. The designers chose the tile because it is easier to clean and was easier to install than other materials, including stone, but still adds a natural look. Beveled subway tile flows across all walls in the bathroom, including in the shower.
8. Window Treatments Elegant window treatments are an almost expected part of a traditional space, but they can suit a transitional or modern space as well. In-window shades can be a smart option for the kitchen, taking up less space and minimizing the risk of getting caught up in a mess or drifting too close to a heat source. Transitional Kitchen by R Titus Designs R Titus Designs Email Save A window treatment is another great way to add some pattern as well, such as this floral print that brings in a wide range of hues to an otherwise mostly neutral space.
Porcelain tile can also replicate the look of wood, an option that designer Stephanie Frees of Plain and Posh feels is on the rise. “I see a surge in materials that mimic nature or more natural elements,” she says. “Tile that looks like hardwood flooring is especially popular in bathrooms.” Frees recently covered the floor of this Chicago master bathroom with a wood-look porcelain tile to great effect.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! Sometimes, if your bathroom has small square footage, rather than try to make it look bigger horizontally, the smartest approach is to embrace the height as the largest dimension and emphasize that feature instead. Using vertical elements as simple as a tall, thin mirror and a bold accent color on a skinny wall can enhance the height of a space and make the room feel big and breezy from that perspective. Add some delicate lights and a little black and white tile, and you’ve got lots to keep the eye moving from flooring to ceiling.
Good lighting is important to making any space look big and open, but in bathrooms, which often don’t have much natural light available, it’s especially important. Plus, in a bathroom, you need good lighting to do things such as shave or apply makeup effectively, so its importance can’t be overstated. Contemporary Powder Room by Constructionologists Constructionologists Email Save For these reasons, it’s key to have a rich lighting scheme, preferably with multiple light sources at different locations. A grid of ceiling lights, as well as sconces or a contemporary edge-lighted mirror will help you avoid shadowing and make the space feel bright and open. In a small powder room, or where you can’t add new electrical for lights, try changing your ceiling light to one with multiple bulbs so you have light coming from several directions from one fixture.
Sometimes a little extra space can go a long way. Adding an open niche not only steals some empty wall cavity space to use as storage, but it can add a lot of visual depth that makes the walls look farther away than they really are. Eclectic Bathroom by Breeze Giannasio Interiors Breeze Giannasio Interiors Email Save Don’t love open shelving? Use that niche space for an inset cabinet and get all that functional storage without having a large object protruding into the room at eye level. This will make the vanity area feel much more open and give you lots of extra elbow room. Keep in mind that plumbing, studs and other hidden conditions can affect where you can and can’t add a niche, so you should definitely talk to a professional before planning to open any walls.
5. Go Big With Your Mirror A large mirror can double the size of your space and, in a bathroom especially, can really help visually double your investment. Transitional Powder Room by Toronto Interior Design Group | Yanic Simard Toronto Interior Design Group | Yanic Simard Email Save In one sense, a very large mirror can be a bit expensive. However, compared with the price of tiling that wall, a mirror can actually give you an equally dramatic look (if not more so) at a better value. Splurge on a large mirror with a beautiful frame, or go wall-to-wall with a custom-sized piece. The effect can be so powerful that you need little else to make the room look perfectly finished. This can be especially effective in slim powder rooms with small walls that don’t take much glass to cover.
2. Try Tone on Tone Not a fan of stark white? You can still get a very big and breezy effect with a tone-on-tone palette in warm beige, soft grays or even faint hues such as powder blue. Choose a sumptuous tile, and find a paint color for the remaining walls that picks up on one of the hues within it. The overall effect is still serene and spa-like, without the jarring visual breaks to shrink your perception of the space.
After: Finishes in whites and grays brighten up the space and materials with a variety of textures help keep it from feeling sterile. Marble and marble-look tile create an elegant and luxurious atmosphere. The floor tile is large-format ceramic made to look like marble. A 3-by-5-foot basket-weave inlay of marble adds interest.
Flat-surface pebbles are a viable solution if you’re keen on the look but are worried about how regular pebbles will feel on your feet, though you’ll still have to clean the grou
Pros: Porcelain tile is highly versatile. It can survive detergents, scratches and long-term water exposure. It can be finished to have an authentic wood, stone or marble appearance. The best part? It accomplishes all of this without being high-maintenance. Expect to enjoy cleaning it (or the lack of cleaning, rather). Cons: Grout can be a problem. Rectified porcelain can keep grout joints small, but grout will no doubt be there for you to clean. It can get slick if it doesn’t have a textured surface.
London Basement Email Save 4. Porcelain Now here’s a shower floor that just might have it all. Made with a dense clay body, porcelain tile is durable and waterproof, and lasts for decades.
V-groove pine paneling on the walls gives it a “cozy, homey farmhouse” feel, Cooney says. “It makes it seem like walls that could be in a barn.” To make the paneling look like it had been left outside and bleached in the sun, she covered it with a watered-down white paint and a flat polyurethane finish.
shower tile
Marble like tiles and lighter tile floor
Marble like shower and darker floor
Lighting
wall boards
Like this wall
Tile. Porcelain tile that looks like marble (with less maintenance) covers the walls. Bolick changed the sizes and shapes to create a “textural play of tones for interest and a clearly custom detail,” he says. The arabesque mosaic trim and bullnose trim in the shower and above the custom vanity are real marble. “The combination of the two materials gives credit to the porcelain, making it feel even more like real marble,” Bolick says. “I had always wanted to do this herringbone floor and never found the right room to do it in. It takes a lot of work to lay it but [is] absolutely worth the cost. It is one of the details my client’s friends always comment on. The shower floor mosaic is a great scale for not slipping in the shower, and pulls all of the natural tones that are used in the different tiles together.”
Lights
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