Content creator Lucy Kalice is one of Ideal Home's Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on cleaning, home decor and making the most of small spaces. See the rest of her articles here.
If you’ve read some of my previous articles you may know that last year my husband and I did a home renovation. One of the rooms we renovated was our main bathroom. It was the same bathroom that was here when we moved into the house and to be honest it wasn’t to our taste. It was grey, it was dull and it was bland.
We have a small bathroom and we found it quite difficult when it came to renovating as there wasn’t much we could do with it. Extending the room was out of the question. So we put hours and hours of research in to be able to get the bathroom how we wanted. We were so pleased and happy with the results but this is what the internet had to say…
Now, first of all, I should say that these comments don’t offend me at all. I love our bathroom and we did what was right for us. However, it’s a stark reminder that everyone has different taste, different likes and dislikes, and interiors is simply not 'one size fits all.'
What’s funny is that the our initial plan with the bathroom was to go bold and colourful, something I’m sure the internet would’ve loved. The vision was small green rectangular tiles around the shower and then bigger tiles elsewhere. We were then going to paint the top half of the bathroom a dark green and go for dark wood features making it feel moody, fun and giving it lots of character.
A big difference to what our old bathroom felt like which was cold and boring.
This was our vision, but when we started thinking about what our goals for the bathroom were, beyond how it looked, we realised that this wasn’t going to work.
What we wanted out of our bathroom was the following:
- Storage – the current bathroom had no storage, no shelves, no cupboards. It wasn’t practical and meant it looked cluttered as we kept toiletries on the window ledge
- Easier to clean – half the bathroom was tiled and half the room was painted meaning it wasn’t seamless to clean
- Maximise space to make it feel bigger – if both of us were in the bathroom it was a tight squeeze because of the way the fixtures were fit. Yes the bathroom was small, but it felt even smaller
Now my biggest advice for anyone going through a renovation is to get clear on what you want to get out of a room before you start decorating. Do you want it to feel lighter? Do you want it to be cosier? What way is the room facing? Do you want it to be easier to clean? Does it need more storage?
With our goals confirmed, we got researching and quickly realised that the green tiled bathroom was not going to work for us. Small tiles make a room feel smaller which is the opposite of what we wanted. Small tiles also means more grout, and more grout can mean more mould build up. We wondered if by going bold on the colour, we would get sick of it in a couple of years and we wanted something more timeless.
So instead we went for big tiles all around the bathroom which make a room feel bigger. We added a barn style sliding door to maximise the space inside the bathroom. And we went for a neutral colour so that it felt more timeless.
And I get it, from the outside it might look like a boring beige bathroom, with no character or depth. But what the internet doesn’t realise, is that hours and hours of research went into deciding what shower to get, the tiles, the basin. They don’t realise our why and what our goals were.
So yes, maybe going for a bright colourful bathroom would’ve made the internet happy but it simply wouldn’t have worked for us. And all I can say is, our bathroom hits every single one of our goals, its easier to clean, we’ve added appropriate storage and the room now feels bigger.
It’s perfect…for us. And that’s all that matters.
