These small spaces all contain clever ideas worth bookmarking if you’re about to embark on a bathroom renovation. Even if you have a little more room to play with, there are plenty of washroom-boosting ideas to inspire here, from savvy storage to clever tiling, that will help you make the most of one of the busiest rooms in the home.
Kitty Lee Architecture
Ditch the shower tray
Using a flush, tiled-over shower tray is the standard way to create a wetroom floor. It’s also a fantastic space-optimiser, since it allows tiles to run uninterrupted across the whole room, giving a sense of more space than if they stopped to accommodate a raised tray.
In this bathroom by Kitty Lee Architecture, the designers have also forgone a vanity unit to give the wall more space to ‘breathe’ around the basin. The lack of storage is compensated for by a generous bank of mirrored (so space- and light-boosting) cabinetry.
There’s also space on the right side of the basin for setting down toothbrushes and so on, and an open ledge for placement of more decorative items, making use of the area created by hiding the plumbing for the back-to-wall loo.
Jessica Helgerson Interior Design
Decide on your priorities
Do you need a standalone, or even a stand-up, shower? If yours is a family bathroom where the bath is the most-used element, and perhaps somewhere also enjoyed for luxury soaks by the grown-ups, then use your limited space to squeeze in the tub of your dreams.
Most bath types come in a variety of sizes, and a smaller-scale version of what you have in mind may well work.
Visually, this double-ended slipper design, chosen for this mini bathroom by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, creates a sense of space, as there’s plenty of floor visible at either end. It also highlights the pretty window as a feature. (Consider frosted lower panes if you’re overlooked.)
Lift and separate
Floating furniture is a popular design trick for helping a small space not to feel crowded. In this small room designed by , the vanity unit is not only wall-hung to keep the whole of the floor visible, it also packs two drawers-worth of storage into a small piece of furniture.
Floating designs can also make cleaning the floor much easier.
Note, also, the plain and almost invisible shower screen; going frameless reduces visual division, helping to create a seamless space.
Find the perfect professional for your project in the Houzz Professionals Directory.
Best Builders ltd
Tuck storage into dead space
Often, there will be a narrow gap between the end of a bath and the wall. It could be tiled over and used as a small, extra surface, but if more storage is required, how about this clever idea, created by Best Builders?
The very slim space is fully maximised with storage that goes up to the ceiling. The pull-out function also makes it easy to access everything inside, leaving no wasted space.
Studio 30 Architects
Choose uniformity
The unusual tiling is the most striking feature of this small attic bathroom, rather than its size.
The designers, Studio 30 Architects, chose to wrap square white tiles with dark grout around the basin and shower tray to minimise their visual impact. The effect, particularly thanks to the unusual curved edges (the product is called DTILE) is that these features blend into the wall and floor respectively.
The addition of a mirror positioned to duplicate the skylight also helps to expand the room visually.
VORBILD Architecture
Add a half-wall
A shower screen need not run all the way to the floor, particularly if the space could be better used with the addition of a half-wall.
Here, rather than closing off the walk-in shower with a solid wall or, conversely, exposing the whole lot with a space-hogging floor-to-ceiling screen, this weeny bathroom, designed by VORBILD Architecture, cleverly has a short wall. This allows the loo to be housed against it, while still having a large glazed area that lets in plenty of light and makes the room look bigger.
Check out the space-saving corner shelving in the shower, too.
Storylines Interior Design
Don’t overlook a nook
In this loft washroom, Storylines Interior Design has made use of every inch available for storage. Not only is the slope over the loo capitalised upon for open shelving, but a small cupboard for less-used items has been squeezed in next to the basin.
Talk to your designer or contractor about the cavities in the walls of your bathroom to see how best you can exploit space that’s not immediately obvious.
You might also like 7 Ideas to Steal from Well-designed Tiny Bedrooms.
Thomas Alexander
Combine a bath and shower
In a small space, the choice may often come down to having either a bath or a standalone shower. Combining the two can be seen as a poor compromise, but, as this stylish bathroom designed by Thomas Alexander shows, it doesn’t have to be.
The smart choice of all-over tiling creates the functionality of a wetroom, meaning a shower screen (which might provide too rigid a divide in a little room like this) can be swapped for this soft shower curtain to the floor and a curved feature bath. Splashes have been catered for, so the curtain doesn’t need to be 100% watertight.
Malcolm Duffin Design
Create a focal feature
Rather than trying to disguise your bathroom’s smallness, give users something else to focus on.
Whether it’s a strikingly tiled single wall, a feature floor, or – as in this compact washspace by Malcolm Duffin Design – a wallpapered ceiling in a graphic pattern, the effect is to give the room a sense of drama and importance, which can help to detract from its petite proportions.
Tell us…
Which of these bathroom ideas would boost space in your home? Let us know in the Comments.
