Bathrooms don’t always scream “Update me!!” in the same way other rooms in your house do. Or, rather, they do; we just don’t spend long enough in the bathroom to hear that voice. The bathroom isn’t like, say, the living room. We spend large amounts of time in the living room. Enough time to realise that we don’t like the wallpaper or the TV isn’t very efficiently placed.

With the bathroom, we tend to go in, do what we need to do, get out.But your bathroom needs some love too! It may not call itself to your attention that much, but guests will certainly be judging it. Giving your bathroom a design update will impress you and your guests! You could also end up bumping up the resale value of your home.

Here are some of the design world’s favourite tips for bathroom updating!

Plants

Let more of nature into your bathroom! When I say ‘nature’, I mean natural light, air and plants. The latter of those is the easiest to deal with. A plant can just be carried in and placed somewhere, after all. The other two are slightly trickier!

The best plants for your bathroom are simple ones. Keep it clean and green! Some colourful, eccentric flower arrangement will just look odd. Many people suggest the Peace Lily as the perfect household plant. And the Peace Lily is a pretty plant, for sure. But if you have a cat or a dog, you may want to avoid it. The Peace Lily is poisonous to cats and dogs, so think twice! A nice Boston Fern or a Spider Plant (which, no, does not contain spiders) are better bets.

As for the light, what room couldn’t be improved with more natural light? A lot of bathrooms have really small windows that were installed quickly and cheaply to meet building laws. Some of these may only open a tiny bit! If your window is too small, consider getting a bigger one installed. Speak to a builder or architect about this possibility.

Make a small bathroom look bigger

Small bathrooms can leave one feeling claustrophobic. There are a lot of facilities in your average bathroom, so it’s a real bother to have them all crammed into too small a room. Increasing the size of your bathroom is usually not that feasible.

Assess the facilities in your bathroom. Are they bigger than you need them to be? Are they oddly placed? A great way of saving room is to have a corner sink installed. Places like Serene Bathrooms also do room-saving bathtubs, too.

If you want more floor space, consider having things mounted on the wall! Sinks and bathroom vanities can be mounted to the wall, saving floor space in the room proper and the shower. Every bathroom needs a small bin; putting a bin underneath a wall-mounted sink looks classy and saves a ton of room!

 There are other tricks you can employ to make your bathroom seem bigger. Natural light will help make any room seem more free and open. Another common trick is to keep the colour scheme consistent. When colour clash is occurring in the room’s materials, you become highly aware of where space ends. Keeping everything at a similar shade will help!