Last Tuesday morning, whilst brushing my teeth in our downstairs toilet – aka the small bathroom under the stairs that is only big enough to fit a toilet, sink and shower – I suddenly had an epiphany. Our eldest daughter Amara was having a tantrum over her favourite mug being in the dishwasher, I was waddling around trying to get ready for work whilst 7 months pregnant, and stood there – toothbrush halfway to my mouth – I pondered… why does this feel like a nicer space than our actual bathroom? Our downstairs toilet isn’t designed with bells and whistles.
We painted the walls a nice sage green when we first moved in, bought a small IKEA floating shelf to add some storage and hung up 1 Etsy print (that I bought for £8). But it all ties together. Everything we put in our upstairs bathroom – that’s cost us exponentially more over the last two years – never seems to sit right.
It feels like a mish mash of things we’ve bought because we liked them, individually, but never really had a cohesive theme when put together. It dawned on me that I’d got interiors completely wrong when it came to bathrooms.
Previously I’d look at individual features I liked; cool taps, stylish mirror, nice tiles – and never considered how they’d all look together.
It’s such a rookie mistake; chucking things together that you like in isolation – but it’s a costly one. We’ve spent probably £300 on tat we either had to swap out (tiles, mirror) or now look at every day and pretend like we like (sink, shower tray). The first major mishap occurred nearly two years ago when we decorated our bathroom for the first time.
I got OBSESSED with these Metro tiles – in a dark green colorway. Absolute statement tiles; the type you see on Instagram home accounts and think ‘jeez I wish my bathroom could look like that but it’ll never happen in real life’. They were £45 a square meter; extortionate for what they were but I justified it in my head as ‘investment pieces, Ross’.
Paired them with chrome taps (they were the cheapest option at Wickes) and a wooden mirror ‘to break up the greyness and warm it up’. Spoiler alert: it looked awful. Those green tiles were too dark for our tiny bathroom, they clashed with the chrome immediately next to them and that wooden mirror looked slap-dashed on for attention.
We lived with it for 6 months before admitting defeat; Mum painted over the tiles using actual bathroom paint. Epic fail. What I learned from this horrible experience was that having a theme isn’t about picking one thing you REALLY like – whether that’s your tiles or your taps – and building around it.
It’s about picking a vibe that you want your bathroom to give off, then collecting everything around that. It sounds stupid writing it down, but for some reason that concept didn’t occur to me until that day brushing my teeth with a toddler raging about the house. Now when we redecorate (we still haven’t finished decorating this bloody house) I always start with a mood.
I’ll pick a general feeling I want that room to be; do I want it to feel relaxing and spa-like? Warm and cosy? Light and energising?
Once I’ve got that locked down, I can pretty much visualise everything else I need to find to finish that ‘theme’. Our main bathroom now has what I’d call a “budget coastal spa vibe”. Sounds highfalutin but bear with me.
I wanted it to feel relaxing and fresh without being stark or cold. Pale blue-grey walls (Dulux “Coastal Blue”. It’s not Farrow & Ball but at £18 a pot it’s not extortionate either).
White subway tiles – they’re timeless and won’t break the bank. Brass-effect shower fittings and taps from Screwfix that look a lot more expensive than they were. Trying to stick to one color palette really helped too; all whites, soft blues and warm metallics.
And where possible I went for natural materials; cotton shower curtain instead of a plasticy one, wooden soap dispenser from IKEA, live plants that can tolerate life in a bathroom. Even the towels were cream and pale blue to match instead of an array of fun colors that nobody would actually wear. (Of course it took me AGES to get here. My first instinct was to cram too much into the space; hideous patterned floor mat, some seashells I’d ‘liked’ on Instagram that just looked naff, overly ‘busy’ wall art.
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I had to declutter it back to basics. I never realised how hard it is to be restrained when you’re finally making progress on a room.) The other thing I learned? Themes don’t have to cost a lot of money OR be unique.
Think about our downstairs toilet/guest loo. It’s teeny tiny with no natural light, but I went for what I can best describe as “modern farmhouse”. Another mortal sin; it’s literally just black and white with some wooden accents thrown in for good measure.
But I painted it all white, brought some black shower accessories and mats from Dunelm and added a wooden shelf my Dad-in-law whittled for us using spare wood. Cost me about £40 and looks like I actually put some thought into it rather than grabbed whatever was convenient. Oh and having a defined theme makes buying stuff for your bathroom SO much easier.
Before, I’d walk into B&Q/Dunelm and be overwhelmed by choice. Now I know straight away if something will work with the calming, nature-inspired theme I was going for. Does it fit with what I already own?
Will it help transport me to the coast every time I step in to poop? Easy to weed out the things that aren’t right. I take screenshots of each room when it’s looking good as hell on my phone.
Obviously; when it’s clean, the light is great and my children haven’t exploded toys/glitter/shampoo everywhere. Whenever I go to buy something new I check; would this look good in that photo? It’s stopped me buying so many ‘oh looks nice’ things that I end up never using.
Our bathroom now doesn’t have ONE defining feature; the tiles are white, the walls are blue-grey, the taps are brass, the towels are cream. But nothing matches exactly and it all WORKS. Because it all fits that calm, nature-inspired theme that I was going for.
Don’t get me wrong – you can still have bits that reference other styles. Our main bathroom might have an overall calming, beachy vibe but I still got a pipe shelf tray from Amazon that nods to the industrial style I love. But you CAN’T marry together things that are inherently different styles.
You can’t have a bathroom that’s industrial and vintage and coastal all at once. Trust. Lastly; you don’t have to spend money on everything to get a themed bathroom.
Paint is your best friend.
It instantly changes the mood of a room and can help transform a_space_you_had_no_interest_in into your happy place. Throw on some new accessories, different towels, some indoor plants if you’re lucky enough to have decent light and you’ve got yourself a themed bathroom.
It cost me about £60 to transform our downstairs toilet; including paint. It went from looking like a generic rental bland-box to a room that actually feels liked somebody wanted to be in there. When you walk into your bathroom and it flows; when everything matches without matching – you’ll know you’ve nailed it.
Our bathroom used to feel disjointed and hectic whenever I walked in; even when it was actually clean. Now it feels inviting and put together, even when there are dangly toddler toys in the bath and yogurt smeared all over the mirror (tres homeschool life). Honestly?
Nothing beats that feeling of accomplishment. Stumbling into a room that you worked hard on; picked every feature individually for and feeling actually proud when you step inside. Trust me, when you’ve got a newborn and a terrible-two roaming around, you need all the wins you can get.
