When the time comes to start making some changes to your home, it’s easy to start with the major spaces such as living rooms, kitchens and dining rooms. These are areas that you spend a significant amount of time in and deserve attention when it comes to redesign.
While it’s fun to get creative with new colors, features and accent pieces, redesigning a room doesn’t necessarily have to involve changing everything from top to bottom. In fact, sometimes the best redesign schemes happen when it’s more a question of opening up space rather than refilling with new items.
This is particularly true when you are working on renovating a smaller bathroom in your home. The bathroom plays a vital role in every house. While it’s often overlooked on the importance scale, it is in fact a room that everyone utilizes on a daily basis and friends and family will be spending time in as well. From freshening up, to finding a minute of quiet to personal hygiene, the bathrooms in your home actually have quite a few expectations for general use. If you’re looking to make a small bathroom feel larger, we’ve come up with a few helpful tips to get you started.
Stick with what’s simple
It can be tempting to try to make a small bathroom attractive by adding a lot of cute or colorful features in order to draw the eye’s attention to that instead of the dimensions of the space. However, this generally works to the opposite end and results in a small bathroom that feels cramped and overdone. If you want to make a smaller bathroom feel larger, it’s important to stick with the primary, simple and necessary features the space requires. For example, if your small bathroom has a tub and a shower taking up space, it might be best to go with one or the other. A freestanding tub can look elegant and also save on precious square footage. Similarly, if you decide to ditch the tub, installing a single corner wall shower can really open up some of the length of the room.
Lighten up for a bathroom that feels larger
The same color tricks that work in your kitchen or living room can apply to your smaller bathroom. If you’re looking to make it appear larger, go with a lighter color scheme. Choosing a more neutral paint and white cabinets is going to make the space seem expansive and give it a fresh, clean finish. Adding white or light-toned granite countertops will keep your bathroom sleek and moisture resistant while also giving your counter space a vast advantage. Reflecting off of the bathroom mirrors, light granite countertops tend to appear even larger!
Finding the right flooring tiles
The dimension of flooring tiles you choose for your smaller bathroom can impact its overall appearance as well. Instead of busy, small tiles, try adding larger and lighter block tiles to your floor. This will give a “stretch” illusion along the length of your bathroom and if you go with granite tiles, will also work as a great compliment to your granite countertops or vanity. Contrary to what you might assume, light granite tiles in a bathroom are extremely easy to clean and highly moisture resistant as well.
Let in the light
Lighting plays a major role when it comes to the appearance of a room’s size and the bathroom is no exception. Play around with a variety of lighting schemes to get your bathroom well lit and appearing larger than it may be. Try a lighting track that winds around the ceiling for optimal lighting, or if you feel it can be strategically placed—a skylight can make a big difference. A combination of natural and artificial light can work wonders when it comes to opening up space.
Get rid of the clutter
The bathroom tends to be a place we drop small items off and leave them without a second thought. However, if you want a smaller bathroom to appear bigger, it’s imperative that you eliminate the clutter from countertops. Getting rid of knick-knacks that don’t serve a purpose on your bathroom countertop and moving them to strategic storage will open up space and create those clean lines that lead the eye to believe it’s seeing a space that appears more vast than what it might actually be.
Make special magic with mirrors
When it comes to the illusion of space, nothing is more magical than a well-placed mirror. Try adding mirrors to your back bathroom wall so that they reflect off of your primary mirror. Together, the illusion will be one of added space and open lighting-both of which will give your bathroom a space, boost beyond its actual square footage count. Similarly, they are going to pick up on the lighter tones of your granite countertops and flooring, making for a very fresh and bright final effect.