The moment I knew my bathroom renovation had paid off happened at 6:47 AM one Tuesday morning. I had apparently spent the last nine minutes blissfully standing under my rainfall showerhead with my eyes closed. I wasn’t contemplating my to-do list or stressing about that big meeting.
I was just breathing. Steam swirling around me, tiles radiating warmth beneath my feet, and watching the water stream down the travertine tiles instead of listening to that awful tin ping of my old showerhead. The reality is it took me three years of planning to get to that moment.
Three years of pinning bathroom designs to boards labeled things like “Bathroom Dreams” and “ Bathroom Ideas, Maybe Someday” that featured hotel suites that I knew I would never actually achieve. Yeah, those bathrooms.
All marble countertops, glass vanities that looked like they floated mid-air, jungle foliage thriving in spaces with no windows, and fluffy towels that had never dried an actual human before.
My bathroom started as a tiny box with shitty tile. You know the one: white subway tile that faded to grey at the grout lines, a bathtub with dodgy caulking around the edge, and one of those vanity cabinets with the mirrored door that didn’t sit flush when you closed it. Stepping into my bathroom to get ready in the morning made me feel like I was using a portable toilet at a construction site.
Eventually I had a particularly stressful work project and found myself taking longer and longer showers because whenever I went home to decompress, I found myself crawling into the bathroom like a exhausted wreck. But clean bathrooms don’t have mouldy grout or flickering fluorescent lights that make you look like a corpse. So I did some calculations.
If I spend close to an hour inside my bathroom every day (shower + brushing teeth + skincare routine + the occasional relaxing bath when everything else is too much) that’s 365 hours. A year of my life spent in a space that made me miserable. Game.
Changer. Obviously I didn’t rip everything out of my bathroom—I didn’t have that kind of budget, nor the time. Nor would my husband have ever forgiven me.
But I started prioritizing changes and testing out what upgrades would make the biggest impact on my everyday life. That rainfall showerhead was first on the list. I’d heard of them, scoffed at them as fancy-pants nonsense, and then tried one at a friend’s house and spent the entire time daydreaming about installing my own.
Two days later I was at the plumbing supplier with a notebook full of showerhead measurements and a panicked look in my eye. That fancy showerhead wasn’t difficult to install, but it wasn’t as easy as turning off your shower and swapping out the old one for a new one. (Here’s a hint: turn off the water to your entire house, not just the bathroom. Trust me and learn from my debacle.) But when I stepped in for the very first time it was life-changing ridiculousness.
Instead of rushing through my shower to get on with my day I found myself lingering way longer than necessary just because I enjoyed showering so much. Heated floors were up next. Don’t lie.
You clicked on that headline wondering the same thing. Heated floors are fancy, obviously. But hear me out.
I agonized over the decision to install them because, yeah, they’re expensive and you only notice them for a couple of minutes each day. But here’s the thing: when? Your entire morning routine is positively affected when you step out of your shower and your bare feet hit heated stone tiles versus cold, hard porcelain.
Trust me. I opted for electric radiant heating beneath large-format porcelain tiles that mimic natural stone but are WAY easier to clean. It was a messy job (SO MUCH FLOORSWEET TILE DUST, GOOD LORD) and I took cold showers at the gym for two weeks while the work was being done.
But that first morning I slid across my bathroom floor barefoot and found myself LOLing. Sometimes the simplest (yet most expensive) upgrades can feel the most indulgent. Lighting was next on my list.
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Your bathroom should have ample lighting for when you actually want to do your makeup or shave your legs, sure. But that bright overhead light? It’s not ideal for…everything else.
I ended up tucking dimmable LED lighting behind my mirror and installing a small pendant light over my tub area. Nothing fancy, just warm lights that I could brighten or dim depending on what I needed. Bright and cheery for Monday morning wake-ups; warm and dimmed for Sunday night bubble baths.
Speaking of baths. The whole aromatherapy experience sort of happened on accident. I was bathing with this eucalyptus body wash that made my whole shower smell amazing, and wondered if I could duplicate that spa-esque vibe without dropping a small fortune on bath and body products.
Enter: essential oil diffuser I tucked discreetly behind my toilet (classy, I know) and a few drops of eucalyptus or lavender oil. Holy crap, does it make a difference. Some mornings it’s invigorating scents like peppermint.
Bedtime showers get lavender. It’s such a small addition but it really conditions my mind to thinking that this is a different kind of space. Storage was practical.
Sure, every Pinterest-worthy spa bathroom has ZERO clutter, but guess what? Real adults have bottles and sticks and face patches and approximately eight million different skincare products we THINK we’ll use on the reg. My game changer was installing floating shelves inside my shower niche and stocking up on uniform containers to keep everything in.
Sure it’s boring, but when everything has its place AND looks aesthetically pleasing, it makes the entire room feel more intentional. Lastly, I tossed some plants in corners. Well, sort of.
Every “how to create a bathroom oasis” article yammers on about plants, but my bathroom gets maybe fifteen minutes of actual sunlight a day. I tried. Trust me, I tried planting thehardercactuses out there, but after murdering two succulents and an African snake plant (apparently low maintenance is subjective), I found some faux eucalyptus stems that actually look realistic enough.
Bonus points when you’re blasted with hot steam and it sort of obscures how fake everything really is. Fake it til you make it, amiright? The biggest lesson I learned from upgrading my morning bathroom routine?
My whole day runs smoother when I’m not rushing around like a frenzied madwoman to squeeze every part of my routine into as little time as possible.
Making your bathrooms a relaxing, calming environment doesn’t just change your mornings—it makes your nights feel less like chores, too. And all of these updates?
Cost me less than a weekend vacation. But they’ve improved my life for the last two years and will probably continue to for many years to come. Sure, my friends are always incredulous that my bathroom “actually feels like a spa!” but honestly guys?
It’s better than most spas because it’s been designed with actual humans…just me in particular. The towel warmer isn’t “faaaancy” enough for an Instagram post, but my towels are ALWAYS dry and heated. The lighting may not be “wow-worthy,” but I can actually see what I’m doing while still feeling zen.
If I could go back, would I do anything differently? I probably would’ve invested in better ventilation during the initial planning stages. All that steam from long, luxurious showers needs to go somewhere—and I learned that the hard way when I had to repaint the ceiling.
But mostly, I would’ve encouraged past-me to stop second-guessing every little decision and just DO IT.
