Many people think of bathrooms as merely functional: it’s where you bathe, wash your hands, and relieve yourself. However, we all know that there’s more to the story. On the Interstate, when you decide to stop at a gas station, the first criteria to consider are the cleanliness of the restrooms. When you eat at a restaurant or have a drink at a bar, you inevitably inspect, scrutinize, and grade the state of their facilities, which tends to reflect the establishment’s overall quality. And the same rule applies to homeowners: guests and prospective homebuyers attach a lot of importance to bathrooms, so you should as well.
Yes, Size Matters!
The biggest concern when it comes to remodeling any room is its size. When you renovate, creating more space should always be a priority. No matter how many fresh fixtures or state-of-the-art features you install, it’ll all be useless if the room feels cramped. This is especially important when it comes to small bathroom design. Lavatories, even if they’re only ? baths, are meant to be luxurious and relaxing. And although it’s great to have a cozy, private retreat, you should also feel comfortable and at ease. So when it comes to undersized restrooms, you need to find ways to utilize the space you’ve been given in order make a tiny area feel like an airy sanctuary.
Let Space Speak for Itself
The simplest way to deal with a small bathroom design is to highlight the pre-existing space. This means you have to trick people into seeing more than what is really there. Giving the illusion of space is a very effective way to enlarge a room:
De-clutter: One bathroom design idea is to remove the clutter. Get rid of the busy wallpaper. Take down the picture frames. Remove excess furnishings. Eliminate those ugly towel bars.
Storage: Now that you’ve ridded yourself of the clutter, where the heck are you going to put your stuff? To hang towels, install a hook on the back of the door or buy a shower rod with towel bars already attached. If you have to have furniture, make it do double-duty. Get a decorative chest that can also act as an additional storage unit. Or invest in a small magazine rack that can be placed out of the way. But it’s best to get things off the floor by hanging tiny shelves or buying a mirrored medicine cabinet to conceal your toiletries.
Lighting: Now that your stuff is out of the way, you now need to spotlight the space you’ve created. In small bathroom design, natural illumination is a great way to cast some light in dark corners. So install a skylight or add a window. If that’s impossible, make use of the light you have. Put in a glass-block window that lets light in from other rooms. Mount some wall sconces that take up little space yet shed lots of ambient light. Or just fire up some candles to generate a romantic mood.
Walls: Along with lighting, another key bathroom design idea is color coordination. Letting your walls stay neutral (white or beige) generates an impression of more space. Plus, if you draw the eye upwards, the room will look taller; so add a border around the ceiling to create more vertical depth. Also, installing polished tiles and hanging mirrors lets the area reflect itself, thereby creating the feel of additional square footage.
More Out of Less
In any type of small bathroom design, it’s the plumbing fixtures that eat up the room. But there are ways to make these cumbersome necessities fade into the background.
Toilet: A hung toilet has no tank attached so it slides right up against the wall.
Sink: Most vanities come with small, useless counter spaces and cabinetry systems. Instead, eliminate the waste by installing a wall-hung sink which frees up floor space. Or a pedestal sink installed in an out of the way corner can deliver the elegance you want with the openness you need.
Tub: Make this particular fixture do the work for two by installing a unit that works as both shower and tub. If you still want luxury, clawfoot tubs actually free up space around the walls and can be turned into a shower or Jacuzzi depending on the model.
Shower: If you have a half bath, a quick bathroom design idea is to simply install a single-stall shower in a corner. And to make it invisible to the naked eye, invest in frameless doors or a clear shower curtain for a transparent appearance.
Lori Smith
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/small-bathroom-design-how-to-make-a-lot-out-of-a-little-675939.html
Painting question? what color makes a room appear larger?
I read in an interior design magazine before that certain colors can make a room look larger or smaller. I’m looking for help choosing colors for my very small bathroom. The room has very little wall space & right now the walls & ceiling are off white. The floor is beige and hunter green ceramic tiles w/green grout.
What colors would make the room apprear larger?
I would go with white or robin’s egg blue
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The lighter the colour the larger.
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I’d recommend cool and slightly dark, like your hunter green or maybe a sea blue…cool and dark colors tend to appear to recede away from the viewer (whereas warm vibrant colors appear to pop out). I wouldn’t go too dark, though, or else you’ll get a dungeon effect. Maybe try a darker color on the walls and a lighter (pastel) shade of the same color family on the ceiling. I’d also consider a few well-placed mirrors, as they always make a place look like it has more depth than it does.
Good luck!
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Design school
keep it light it doesnt have to be white but just a light color and covering the dark green floors with light rugs would help also. you might try a butter color and paint your trim in white.
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light colors are the best to go w/ since its a bathroom why dont you go w/ a peachy color
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The most common bathroom color is white. White is simple and elegant. White also shows dirt very easily, which, may make it easier to keep the bathroom spotless; you’ll always know where the dirt is. One of the interesting aspects of white is that it reflects heat, meaning on those cold winter mornings there is no color colder then white to have in a bathroom.
pretty much, bigger= cool colors
smaller = warm colors
Visit my source’s web site. there is pretty much everything to know on there about what colors will do and which room to put them in. it’s quite knowledgeable
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http://www.all-homedecor.com/color/color.htm
lighter colors on the walls, mirrors would help..
But consider changing the tile. It sounds like your grout lines are dark, so your are drawing attention to the floor, which will make your bathroom feel very small. Try putting in a larger tile, 12 x 12 at the smallest and get a grout color that will blend with the tile and not have such a prominent look. You’ll be amazed how much it will help.
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good info here
http://kidsthemebedrooms.com/color-scheme-bedroom-decorating-ideas.html
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Light colors tend to make spaces look larger. Usually I would choose a light blue, but since this is a bathroom you might go with a very light green or green and blue.
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White or light, light blue.
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Light green to a whitesh color, this makes the room appear larger.
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i think that brighter colors make a room look larger. maybe like a pale yellow.
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red and white do the trick =D
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every one says that white makes the room look larger, but if u don’t want to do white u should get a lite color, but don’t do a dark color it will make it look small, Hope i helped
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light pale green or very light blue on the walls… I’d say change the flooring colour to something a bit more towards the light greys… I got that combination at home and it looks nice and makes the room spacious looking.
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Pure White, always makes a room larger, If you need some color use some pastle colors for the tile, base boards and curtians…………..
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WHITE
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I think a very light yellow would be very pretty with the dark green tiles.
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i have a small room it was lime green and it was really small now it is white and it looks bigger
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light colors
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The Darker a color the smaller a space will look.
The lighter a color the larger a space will look larger.
Also use a semi-gloss, gloss or high gloss paint in the bathrooms this protects the walls from the elements. And don’t go with all white that’s boring do something like pastel green (also known as mint), or a lavendar.
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I used to make paint for a living. . . .
In order to make a room look larger it is best to use a light neutral color.
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white
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White
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white, beige
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If you don’t mind looking at yourself, placing a mirror along one wall is a good way to make the room look larger…and stick to light colors.
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Lighter colors tend to make spaces appear larger and airier. A much paler version of the hunter green for the walls and an eggshell or light beige for the ceiling will "raise" the ceiling and make the walls appear taller. If height isn’t a problem, the pale green can be used for both walls and ceiling and can be custom-mixed for you at the paint store. Hunter green can be used for the door, baseboards and any trim. Go with the same green for a cotton bath matt (very tasteful) and acquire towels that are green, beige and both.
A well placed mirror can be very effective but if your bathroom is as small as I think it is, an extra mirror on the wall may be disconcerting. And you may not have the budget or the inclination to retile your floor. This is a big job that requires skill and the right equipment, like a tile cutter. The floor sounds fine as it is. You can work with it. If it seems too "heavy", use a beige bath matt to lighten it up instead of a green one.
If the room lacks a window, a small to moderately sized framed print of an outdoor scene (not a photograph) on one wall can create a window, provide a "view" and help to open the room.
Whatever colors you ultimately choose, be sure the type of paint you use is appropriate for a bathroom (moisture, you know) or you may find it peeling within 6 months.
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white, any light color, light dill green at k-mart (martha stewart) is a nice neutral color–many to choose from…..
also if you paint one wall a different color (using all light colors however)–just the different shade on that one wall will create an illusion of greater space. Mirrors add dimension as well.
To save space for your things, think about not only hanging shelves (closer) the wall to reserve room for floor area.
Think about HEIGHT too,…..hanging things high up towards the ceiling (more shelves/decorations)–saw this on a televsion show, but it was for a very small entertainment area room.
It’ll work for any area
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You could check online and find something called a ‘color wheel’ used by designers everywhere.
You would need to select a color(s) which is across the wheel form the two you mentioned, beige and hunter green.
Beige has some red in it and hunter green has more blue than yellow, so it’s likely the white is a good choice to create an open neutral effect over-head.
By adding a tiny bit of blue to the off white, you might balance the amount of blue in the tiles and red in the floor to lend a sense of an expanding ceiling.
You also need to think about proportions: by selecting FEWER pieces of (ironically) LARGER furniture, it can create an optical illusion of having more space in a room.
Also, mixing up styles to create an eclectic feel is useful in small rooms, if you place glass-top tables on wrought iron bases, which allow the light to travel and circulate and refelct back to the ceiling for enhanced dispursement.
The glass needs to be placed at a middle level to low (In relation to the floor, since the lower you table is, the more it area it will reflect onto on walls and ceiling.
You might think about offering a design student a small payment to help you, since they are trained to tell you everything I mentioned. Happy decorating!
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well
light colors for me only its only expressed in white or off white or snow color
+ u can put mirrors give u great wide feeling
+ and the must important part is the light direction
i think that the indirect light is the perfect one
so our equation will be as "
white color + mirrors+ indirect light = prefect large room
best regards ; )
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dun go for dark colors….
go for very very light blue /cream …color
ceilin can b white / very lite blue
ur wish
the wall which doesnt have window shud hav veery very lite color to want big feel of room
wall which has window for that u can keep dark color like green /blue///any
i did this
i like my room back home india
u ll like it
hope u like me and my experince above
hav fun
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Here is a site that can help you with your dilemma… if your going for coziness to just making it larger. The site is for small spaces and covers exactly what you want
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http://interiordec.about.com/cs/articl2/a/des_smallspaces.htm
they do say the lighter the larger so you can’t go wrong with white, if you find white boring i would reccomend a very light blue or green
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white
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I think you should pick your favorite color.
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terribbet3@verizon.net
White and silver.
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go darker as opposed to lighter. it is a fallacy that dark colors make a small room appear smaller. quite the opposite is true. and paint the ceiling and walls the same color. use lighter accent colors for the accessories. you can go to the BEHR paint website to do a virtual room makeover- colors and all. have fun!!!
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