Remodel Your Small Bathroom

1. Watch The Floor Tiles

The color, size, and direction of your floor tiles all make a difference in how your bathroom looks and feels. Be careful when choosing the flooring for your bathroom, and use these tips.

Tile Color

White or off-white tiles reflect a lot of light, making the space look bigger. If you like white, focus on that color when looking at tile. If you’re not a fan, at least make sure that you only use one color of tile and that your entire bathroom can match that shade. The more colors you have, the more cluttered your bathroom will look. Make sure the grout between your tiles also matches the color of the tiles.

Tile Size

Use larger tiles for a small bathroom. It seems counterintuitive, but this trick works. If you have many small tiles, you’ll have even more grout lines, which break up the space and make it look cluttered. Bigger tiles require fewer grout lines.

Tile Direction

If your tiles are rectangular instead of square, you can use them to your advantage. As with clothing, stripes direct the eye, so stripes going from side to side in your bathroom will make it seem wider. For the best effect, focus the tile so it emphasizes the part of your bathroom that’s the longest. In other words, if your bathroom is longer from front to back than side to side, align your tiles so they also point front
to back.

2. Use Glass

Glass is perfect for small bathrooms. Since it’s clear, it doesn’t make the bathroom look cluttered, and because light bounces off of it, it makes the whole bathroom look cheerful and bright. Use glass for:

• Your shower door. You can improve your shower door even more if you also make it slide instead of swing open. That way, it’ll take up less space.
• Shelves. Bathrooms hold a lot of our stuff, so we need shelving. Consider glass shelves: they aren’t a great choice for bathrooms that kids use, but if you don’t have toddlers that like to climb, they look great.
• Mirrors. With small bathrooms, go big on your mirrors, which make the room look doubly spacious. You can get an even better effect by putting the mirror opposite a window, so the light bounces back and forth between the two.
• Skylights. Lighting is always important, but especially in a small bathroom. Get more natural light in by installing a skylight.

By adding glass to your bathroom, you’ll make the space look clean and open.

3. Organize Your Things

Bathrooms host cosmetics, sanitary items, extra soap, magazines, and a variety of other small objects. If you’re not careful about how you store these items, they’ll make your small bathroom look cluttered. When your bathroom has more empty space, free of your stuff, it’ll look bigger.

Start by getting rid of what you don’t need. If you have extra lotion that was a gift from a friend five years ago, toss it. Chances are that you’ll never use it, so the best way to honor the gift from your friend is to not let it weight you down.

Once you’ve pared your things down to the essentials, think carefully about how to store them. When possible, use open shelving that’s recessed into the wall. That way, you’ll take up the least amount of visual space in the bathroom as possible.

Of course, some things are better stored in cabinets because they are not pleasant to look at. Make your cabinets as unobtrusive as possible. Recessing them like the shelves is a great idea, and medicine cabinets help as well. If you have a cabinet under your sink, try having it stop before it touches the floor-the more open floor space you have, the bigger the bathroom will look.

Once you’ve organized and stored your things out of the way, your bathroom should look more open and spacious.

When you’re remodeling, you need to plan ahead to make the best possible use of the space. By being careful with your tile, using glass, and organizing your things, you can make a small bathroom feel comfortably large.