The bathrooms of many modern homes often seem like they were an afterthought in the architects mind. While they design and plan for large spacious kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms, the bathroom frequently appears to have been squeezed into whatever space was left over. Unless you go to the expense and inconvenience of renovating and extending your home, it’s not always possible to make the room any bigger… but with a few simple design tricks, you can make it feel like you’ve got more space than ever before.
The most important factor in any room is the light. Ideally you want to get as much natural light into the bathroom as you can, but of course it’s not always possible to enlarge the size of any window openings. If you’re able to, you can consider fitting a skylight or a sun-pipe – but these can be costly and, depending on the location of the bathroom in your house, not always practical. If you’re unable to increase the amount of natural light in the room, then it’s more important than ever to choose the best bathroom light fixtures that you can.
There’s always as touch of personal preference to consider here, and of course everyone will have their own ideas about style and design – but, recessed ceiling light fittings are often the best type to use as they allow for the light to be evenly balanced around the room. This is very important, as you want to create a lighting effect that leaves no shadows or gloomy corners – if the edges of the room are as brightly lit as the centre, it’ll create an illusion of extra space as the boundaries of the room will have been pushed back.
It goes without saying that you should eliminate any clutter in the room, so fit shelving and storage units to hide away all your toiletries and other bathroom essentials. Glass shelving allows the light to flow through it and, provide you keep them clean, can seem invisible to the eye. Storage units should be plain in design and light in colour, matching in with the décor of the rest of the room. If you can’t settle on a colour to choose, then white will match with everything. Try to find a unit with a glossy finish, as this will also help to bounce the light around.
Finally, fit a large illuminated bathroom mirror behind the sink unit, and make this as big as you possibly can. This will give the room the appearance of extra space, but will also make day-to-day tasks like putting on make-up or having a shave a breeze. With the mirror being illuminated, you can be sure that you’ll never be struggling to see what you’re doing as you’ll never be standing in your own shadow again.
So if you follow this plan then, of course, the room won’t be physically bigger but it will certainly seem to be. It’s surprising what you can do with a few simple design ideas and a few tricks of the light.