It’s 6am. You’re standing in your shoebox bathroom, blinking at yourself in the mirror, trying to slap on some mascara without poking your eye out. You curse under your breath: “God, this place feels like a cave.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt this way about your bathroom.
Ever since I moved into my first post-university home with a bathroom smaller than some bedrooms, I’ve been determined to make the most of tiny bathrooms. Mine was roughly four feet by six feet (yes, I measured it…three times). The walls were painted in what the estate agent shamelessly described as “warm beige” and the whole room just felt closed-off and…sad.
Like the sadness took up physical space. Just getting ready each morning felt like performing your beauty routine inside a cardboard box.
Until I learned about this game-changing paint colour trick that can make your bathroom walls disappear.
Hold up, it’s not actually magic. Colour psychology and light reflection areReal science. And tbh it’s way cheaper than moving walls, which let’s face it, your landlord will never allow.
Trust me, I became obsessed with finding super light-reflective colours after reading an interior design magazine article about how white reflects around 85% of the light that hits it back into the room, while darker colours absorb that light. Colour reflected = more spacious rooms. Duh.
But I didn’t love painting everything pure white. It just felt so…institutional. Like hospital-white.
Remember that gross rental I lived in right after college where my landlord painted every surface brightness? WHITE PAINED WALLS literally screamed COVID SURFACE. Enter Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White.
It looks like white from afar, but it’s actually an “off-white” with hints of a warm undertone that keeps it from looking so sterile. I painted one wall and watched the magic happen. Hours later when I stepped into the bathroom it looked and felt brighter.
Brighter. Did my shoulders actually relax when I walked into the room? Yes.
Is science weird? The tricky part here is that NOT ALL WHITE PAINTS ARE CREATED EQUAL. I made the rookie mistake of buying cheap off-white paint from the local hardware shop for a bathroom refresh in a friend’s rental (same approximate square footage as mine, same light levels) and the walls absorbed all the life and light leaving me with a flat, dull, and still-cramped-sensation bathroom.
Invest in good quality paint pigments, especially if your bathroom gets steamy: you want a paint that can still bounce light back in the room, even when covered in bathroom condensation. After Cloud White opened my eyes to all things light-reflective paint colours I started testing out any and all pale colours I could think of that would trick the eye into thinking my bathroom was more spacious. My number one rec is Farrow & Ball’s Pointing.
Yes, it’s pricey, but remember: we’re talking inches of extra “square footage” here. And tbh I don’t mind spending more on paint if it’s going to make a small bathroom feel as huge as possible. Pointing is sort of an “off white” with grey undertones that shift from blue-ish to green-ish depending on the light.
Colour changing paint? Sign me up. Ok but my favourite surprise colour was actually the palest pink I could find.
Are you picturing Pepto-Bismol pink bathrooms and cringing right now? Stop. Haters.
It’s called Clare’s Current Mood and it is so ridiculously pale that it essentially reads as white at a distance, but adds a warm touch that standard white can’t. Skeptical? Same.
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My friend Sarah called me the liar when I told her it would work for the teeny tiny ensuite in her NYC apartment. She sends me photos of her bathroom every few months to remind me that she can’t believe how good it looks AND feels. Colour undertones are important to note here.
Cool colour undertones (whites with blue, grey or green undertones) can help your bathroom feel more spacious, but may make the space feel colder, especially if your bathroom doesn’t have natural light. Warm colour undertones (think creams, pale peach tones, barely-there yellows) can help your bathroom feel like it has sunshine pouring in even if it’s windowless. I learned this lesson the hard way when I painted my sister’s basement powder room a cool grey-white that looked dreamy on the paint chip but made her bathroom feel colder than it already was.
Same goes for light blue-greens! They’re especially lovely if you have white bathroom fixtures. I painted my bathroom Cloud Blue by Dulux last year and love it.
It’s so pale you’d be forgiven for thinking it was white. It reminds me of the colour of the sky just after sunrise and something about that colour blows up my bathroom ceiling. Ok yes I painted my ceiling the same colour instead of white.
Bucs go big or go home. Curious about what colour my bathroom ceiling is? Drumroll please….
Interior Finishes Ivory by Dulux. It’s a warm, off white with just the faintest hint of yellow undertones that makes my bathroom ceiling feel taller. Painting your ceiling the same colour as the walls (instead of pure white) is such an easy way to make your bathroom feel more lofty.
Ok now about that bathroom ceiling: most people don’t consider paint finish when decorating small bathrooms, but trust me…it matters. For walls and ceilings I always recommend going with either semi-gloss or satin paint because they both reflect more light than matte finishes. You do have to be a tad more careful with them as they will show imperfections in paint more easily than matte finishes, but they’re worth it.
Another bonus? Easy to wipe down with a cloth if you’re looking at splashes from the shower each day. White sanitaryware and chrome fixtures are obviously ideal with these colours as they literally add more things that reflect light around the room.
Trust. It’s like having mirrors on your walls AND ceiling. I have chrome taps, a white basin and painted my tiles white.
My bathroom is basically a giant light box thanks to this combo. Paint Colour tip when choosing colours for a small bathroom: try to avoid colours that might look great in the paint store but are too niche for your bathroom. Colours can look drastically different depending on where the light comes from in your bathroom.
Test your paint colour on the wall you’re thinking of painting and live with it for at least 48 hours.
See how the colour changes at different times of day? That soft sage green you loved in the morning may look like baked-green poo by the light of your bathroom lamplight.
I now keep sample pots of Cloud White, Pointing, Current Mood and Breakfast Room Green (a beautiful sage green that works wonders in a bathroom with good natural light) at all times. Each of these light-as-air colours work in different bathrooms and creates a slightly different mood, but all give the illusion of space. Paint truly is transformative.
Speaking of transformation: these colours changed my mornings. I genuinely feel less rushed when I’m getting ready because the light colours and reflective surfaces don’t make me feel squished into a teeny tiny box anymore. Kind of crazy how your surroundings affect your mood, right?
And the best part? All of this costs around £30-50 for a bottle of paint, depending on the brand and size of your bathroom. That’s it.
Don’t rush into a full bathroom remodel when all you need is a fresh coat of paint.
