Tips and Tricks for Making a Small Bathroom Feel Bigger

Many people with small bathrooms often dream of making them larger. While tearing down walls to open up a room isn’t always the most practical solution, there are plenty of ways to make your bathroom look bigger than it truly is.

It’s vital that our bathrooms function well, but we want them to look and feel fantastic too. After all, we spend a lot of time there relaxing and working to make ourselves look and feel our best. Here are a few interior design tricks for how to make a small bathroom feel bigger.

Bring in the light

Bathrooms are often dark, and that makes them feel small, but bringing natural light into the room makes the space look brighter and feel bigger. Install a window or skylight (if possible) to bring light into the room, and use a translucent shade so that you aren’t shutting out the light.

Watch your colours

Another great small bathroom idea is to make your walls, ceiling, and tiles the same or similar colours and keep them simple. By using lots of colours and patterns on your walls, your room will appear cluttered and shut-in. The complexity that multiple colours bring can divide up the space, making it feel smaller and compartmentalised. However, by staying within the same colour family, you create the impression of a bigger space.

Likewise, if you can match your taps, door and cabinet handles, tub, sink, shower spouts, vanity, and other bathroom accessories to the main colour, it will create a more streamlined look, also giving the appearance of openness.

Use matching tiles on your wall and floor

Small bathroom designs often need creative ideas. Use a simple tile on your floors to give the impression of a larger floor space in the room, and keep the tiles large for a cleaner and less messy look.

Follow the floor tile up the walls, all the way to the ceiling. Doing this ensures you have no horizontal lines on your walls, which tend to cut your room in half and make it appear smaller. By eliminating these lines, your ceiling will look higher, and your room will look like it has more space and is much brighter.

Separate your walls

Push your walls apart by creating horizontal lines in your room to create a wider small bathroom design. If you have a narrow bathroom, you’ll want to create the illusion of width so the bathroom appears more open. Use horizontal floor tiles to widen the space and make this happen.

Use clear glass

Many people opt for shower curtains in their bathroom, or they choose frosty or decorative glass. This actually creates the feeling of having an extra wall in your bathroom, thus shrinking the space. By dividing the room up, you’ll make it look smaller.

Use a clear glass door in your shower to open it up and help the room look cleaner and brighter.

Hang mirrors

If you have room, add another mirror or two. The more light you can reflect from these mirrors, the bigger your room will appear. Consider a full wall mirror or a couple of big full-body mirrors. The glass acts like a window and brings in light, creating a brighter room.

Use the mirror to reflect different light sources wherever possible, like from a window, door, or even the above sink lighting.

Install minimalistic fixtures

Instead of having a full vanity, install a pedestal basin in the room. Likewise, opt for a wall hung toilet. This will give the illusion of additional floor space since the toilet is not touching the floor. Another option is to look for a small bathtub. Some bathtubs are specifically designed for a small bathroom. Again, the extra floor space will open up your room. 

Check your shelves

Another small bathroom idea is to consider using recessed shelves, as it frees up space in your bathroom. It keeps the walls free of clutter and doesn’t disrupt the space since there is nothing sticking out from the wall. If recessed shelving isn’t an option, try open shelves instead of a cabinet. This makes the walls look like they are back further and adds additional space to the room.

The bottom line

These tips for small bathrooms can help make your bathroom appear more open, clean, and bright. If you are looking for new fixtures or other items to help make your bathroom appear larger and more open, check out our showroom or contact us for more advice.