When it comes to listing a home it’s ideal to have professional photos done to show off every aspect of every room, but there are some rooms that are just so small they often get skipped in this process.
But, there ARE ways to make these rooms – which are often bathrooms – stand out and shine. Taking a little bit of extra time and paying attention to detail can make these rooms pop and even sell your house!
Here are some ideas on how to approach a small room in your house – these can equally apply to either a bathroom or other space like a sitting area, nursery or reading nook/office:
Keep everything the same tone and color as much as possible
Mixing dark walls and light tile or woodwork (or vice versa), will chop up the space, visually, and make it seem smaller. If you DO want some contrast, limit it to something that is more of an object in the space, like a low cabinet or a light fixture. Then that object will stand out as a feature, while everything else will recede and blend together as a backdrop. White towels also help make a small room pop.
Paint the ceiling the color of the walls
This really helps if the room is tucked under the stairs or under an eave upstairs. If the ceiling is angled or has some oddly shaped low areas, painting everything a unifying color will make those unusual shapes disappear, and the space will visually expand.
This cuts down on the number of transitions and planes intersecting, therefore creating a cleaner, more expansive upper space in the room. If you can go one shade lighter on a flat ceiling this will help visually as ceilings always appear a bit darker than the walls.
Blend the tile color and wall color
Blending the tile (in a bathroom) or woodwork (in another small space) to the wall doubles your space in a small bathroom/space. By blending the color or value of the tile with the wall, it will all seem like one larger room.
Take the tile in the shower up to the ceiling
Often you will see in new construction that some builders will stop tile one inch below the ceiling, then trim out the edge of the tile with bullnosed edges. That probably costs more money than just taking the tile all the way up to the ceiling.
Watch transitions
The more you can blend a material from one area to the next without stopping and starting it, the cleaner and less busy the space will appear.
Having tile or woodwork run all the way around and through the bathroom/small space helps with this effect. This will also work in a bathroom, for example, with the same flooring running from the floor into the shower.
Use clear glass in your shower
Textured glass can make a space feel like it has an extra wall. You may be able to get light in and have some privacy, but it will be a visual barrier within the room.
Use mirrors
Nothing makes a bathroom or small space feel bigger than a mirror that reaches to the ceiling. Trimmed out in wood or tile, a tall, expansive mirror with lighting installed on top of it, or hanging in front of it, will double the light’s impact and make the space grow.
Don’t, however, use double mirrors over side by side sinks or next to each other on a small space wall as this will chop up the space.
Use mirrors strategically
Place mirrors across from a window within the room. Doing so will make it visually seem like you have two windows in the same space.
A mirror on a bathroom’s cabinet doors can reflect the light from the window in the adjacent room if placed correctly.
You can also use mirrors in a small bathroom, from side wall to side wall, over a vanity with wallpaper used in the room. The wallpaper blends into the edge of the mirror, and that pattern then visually continues on to infinity through the mirror.You’ve just enlarged your room tenfold without moving a wall.
Embrace natural light
Natural light in a master bathroom or smaller nook is always desirable. Nothing beats the feeling of walking into a bathroom in the morning and sunshine being there to welcome you.
Many bathrooms have windows that have been covered with shutters, or some sort of blacked-out window covering, to create privacy, but this instead just creates a wall-like effect. Instead, cover a window with a translucent window shade, or a tone-on-tone stained glass window – that way you can have natural light and privacy.
If you don’t have a window, consider a solatube, or other kind of skylight to bring natural light into the space.
Other Lighting Ideas
Stay away from fluorescent lightbulbs in the bathroom. Halogen or xenon bulbs are the best options near the vanity, ideally on either side of the mirror over the sink (if room permits). Otherwise, ceiling pendants or recessed lighting are great options. Try a plug-in pendant in front of a sliding mirror vanity or just to the side of a mirror cabinet.
A great addition is a damp-rated waterproof recessed light in the shower.
Recess your cabinetry and shampoo shelving into the walls
Just like a typical medicine cabinet is recessed into a wall, if you have a linen cabinet that protrudes out into the space, and you need just a few more inches of storage, bury it into the wall. Doing so will require the walls to be reframed in that area, but it will give you four extra inches of space.
Rethink Closet Space
Try to get rid of the linen or other closets built out of sheetrock walls with a full height door as this makes the walls encroach in the space. If you build that cabinet out of wood, in a typical cabinet fashion, you gain 8-10” of overall width (the thickness of the two sheetrock walls on each side). A cabinet can then be built to look like a piece of furniture in the room, which will add character and get rid of those extra walls.
Rethink Storage Placement
After you’ve pared down extra toiletries and items that you don’t need to store in your small bathroom, you’ll need to find the right containers and storage space for them.
Expandable, under-the-sink organizers help double storage space. Maximize wall space to help keep things off the sink and floor. The things you’ll want to put in storage bins include tissues, cosmetics, spare towels, and hair accessories and styling tools. Hide cleaning supplies, extra rolls of toilet paper, and other items you don’t want in plain view in the vanity.
Put a single towel rack behind the door or a nice metal train rack mounted on the wall above the toilet (or opposite it) so you have a place to hang fresh white towels. Limit the amount of towels to the absolute bare minimum. For a powder room, just a hand towel will do. For a full bathroom, two to three towels, max.
