“I just can’t stand gendered bathrooms anymore,” Sarah had said to me recently as she described the situation with her boyfriend’s powder room. “The tiles are black, it looks like…gross…metal pipes were fully exposed and every surface is charcoal grey. He’s spent thousands on it, and it looks like an expensive gentleman’s club toilet.” Sound familiar? If you spend any time trawling the #masculinebathroom pages on Instagram you’ll see thousands of similar bathrooms – dark walls, exposed pipes and Edison lightbulbs.
Hazy photos taken to make the space look as cool as possible so everyone comments and likes telling you how sexy your bathroom is. Look, I get wanting to have an attractive bathroom, but I bloody well hate these masculine bathrooms so much. Don’t get me started on all the grey either, that’s a whole other rant for another day.
Malevolent bathrooms It got me thinking about how many ‘masculine’ bathrooms I’d seen recently and it turns out A LOT! Through friends, family and when Simon and I were looking for our house in Dunstable before we bought our current one.
When renovating it we took the totally opposite approach and went bright white walls, wood everywhere and warm lighting.
The result? People always comment on how calming it is and I love spending time in there. Friends bathroom before… Anyways, seeing Sarah’s bathroom made me realise that I’d been in enough of these grey, ‘masculine’ bathrooms that I could pretty much redesign one myself.
So when my brother- in-law Dave asked me for advice on him renovating his bathroom last year, I seized the opportunity. The bathroom had been renovated when he first moved in but, true to masculine bathroom stereotype, it was poo brown. Dark tiles =GUYS WEAREHYGIENICANDTHISHASSPOILEROVER It took a LOT of convincing to get him to lighten the walls, but now it’s done I’m so glad we did.
Painting the walls white/light grey really opens up the space and makes it feel airy and clean. Dave was worried it would look boring but trust me it doesn’t. Flooring wise we went for wide oak floorboards.
Again, another big no-no for masculine bathroom traditionalists but wooden flooring ages so nicely. Plus who wouldn’t want to walk around barefoot on warm wood tiles instead of cold, hard and grim marble? We found an old wooden dresser from a reclaimed wood shop local to us in Luton and painted it sage green.
Same colour I painted our bedroom by the way, it’s such a calming colour! The marble slab we got was also white with a really thin (roughly 2cm) cream edge. Dave insisted on having gold coloured taps which thankfully we managed to tone down with an outdated white sink.
Honestly it came together so nicely and Dave was stunned by how calming the sage green looked. He worried it made it look feminine but screw that, it’s a nice colour! Image from HomeLane.com When it came to lighting we really did chuck that masculinity out of the window.
Now I know that masculine bathrooms are basically contractually obliged to have those exposed bulb pendant lamps but let me tell you they are UGLY! Nobody wants to see that many exposed light bulbs in their home. They’re also really unflattering so why would you willingly invite that into your home?
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No thank you. Instead we opted for some proper brass wall lights on each side of the mirror. The ones we got had fabric lamp shades which give off such a warm glow.
Finally we added a teeny tiny chandelier! Ok, so we didn’t go overboard but hear me out. ANY chandelier in a guys bathroom is going to stand out and totally confuse the hundreds of Instagram followers swiping through who think your bathroom is the pinnacle of masculinity.
Ignore the door. Mirror goes almost floor to ceiling as Dave is 6 foot 4 and unlike me struggles to use bathrooms with mirrors suited to my height. We went frameless for ease but also because it would look too much like we were trying to dress the room if it had a big fancy frame.
Storage consisted of floating wooden shelves to match the floor. We use them for some plant-life (they love the steamy bathrooms), plenty of chic décor and as a place to stash Dave’s grooming products. I’m forever moaning at him about how much money he spends on them so we may as well showcase them!
Obviously he had to have a giant rainfall shower with dark grey walls and metal pipes haha! In all seriousness the shower was by far the most expensive part of the renovation but we went with large white marble tiles with grey veins instead of the black you usually see. We kept the shower screen clear with minimal fixings so it blends into the wall.
We even built a marble bench into the wall. Sound expensive? It isn’t!
And trust me when I say it’s the best thing to have in a bathroom. Not only does it look high end it’s so useful. Having somewhere to sit put your bottles or towels that isn’t the floor is genius.
Everything we own in the bathroom is white.
White towels, white shower mat. You name it.
Why? Well everyone likes to complain about how much money I spend on white quartz worktops in kitchens but white towels are deceivingly expensive. They also stay whiter longer and are easier to chuck in the washing machine if they get messy.
Dave wanted grey towels at first because ‘white is feminine’ white towels friends. WHITE TOWELS. It doesn’t stop there though.
We literally put plants EVERYWHERE. A huge fiddle leaf fig in the corner that absolutely loves the steamy atmosphere, snake plants on the shelves and even a small orchid on the dresser. Plants make everything better, including your bathroom.
