Designing a beautiful budget bathroom

It’s bathroom demo day! After much back and forth, we’re finally on the way to getting our old, leaking bathroom ripped out and our new bathroom put in. Very excited! I already wrote a bit about the lead up to the work starting. Today, I wanted to talk about the bit I really love – pulling together the design.

The inspiration

Because the bathroom is such an investment, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to date super fast. The plan was to turn the cramped, cold blue bathroom and toilet into rooms that felt bright, spacious and warm. I love the look of large, furniture-like vanities, fresh natural-look tiles and pops of blue. Brass fixtures and jewellery-like sconces were also up there on my wishlist. Unfortunately both of those had to go to meet the budget. However, the idea of incorporating something bright into the bathroom remained.

The final bathroom palette

There was a lot of change between my initial inspiration and the final palette. Much of those changes came down to the budget, but I think we’ve still landed on a design that is going to give us the feel we wanted, while still tying into the rest of the house.

I had initially wanted to use subway tiles on the walls, but tilers will charge more to install subway tiles. If you’re looking at tiling, it’s worth noting that for very large or very small tiles, the price for the work will go up. The same is true if you want to do any fancy layouts, such as herringbone or chevron. Sticking to tiles between 200mm x 200mm and 600mm x 600mm laid in a brick pattern will help you keep costs down.

To that end, we chose the carrara marble-look wall tile from Beaumonts. They are 250mm x 400mm, within the basic tiling scope. Being larger, they will give some drama to the walls and shower niche, but their soft marbling will keep things subtle and relaxing. These tiles come with several different ‘faces’ to help mimic real marble. The last thing I wanted was carbon copy striations striping up the wall! They are also in a gloss finish, which will bounce around the light and be easy to clean.

We made the floor our statement colour place. My husband championed the final choice of the blue and white Majorca Palm Springs tile. I had originally leaned towards black and white but I agree that the blue and white is a softer statement, and fits with the overarching house theme better. The patterned floor isn’t just an aesthetic statement. It’s also a great way to hide dirt! There’s nothing worse, in my opinion, than seeing dark hair strewn all over a light-coloured tile floor. And since I’m not going to sweep my bathroom everyday, having a pattern and a darker colour will help keep things looking tidy.

For the walls, we’re sticking with our tried and true Natural White from Dulux. I tried a few different white swatches in there, but Natural White keeps coming up a winner. It has a beautiful soft mushroom tone when in natural light, which works with the greys of the marble but doesn’t go grimy or cold.

The custom bathroom vanity

One of the places we put a bit of extra money was our custom vanity. Because our bathroom is so narrow and lacking in storage, it was important to have something that was going to fit well and still deliver on the storage needs. We looked at several different ready-made vanities, but they weren’t quite right, as well as being anything but cheap. In the end, we were happy to pay roughly the same amount for the custom job as we would have for a mid-range shop bought option.

I chose an inset sink, so there’s no lip around the sink to clean. You get a beautiful clean line across the top of the vanity, with the sink sitting in line with the benchtop. Not having to scrub around the sink is going to be so great! The less little lips, lumps, cracks and corners you have in the bathroom, the better!

We chose to go for a white vanity with chrome hardware, to match all the chrome tapware. My main inspiration (above) was to have a timber vanity, but again the dollars didn’t want to play ball. That said, I think the white finish will be quite classic, and avoids the risk of a certain wood tone or grain becoming dated down the track. I would say it’s a safe, if not exciting, design choice.

The stone top will be in Twinkle Star, which I really fell in love with. It actually has tiny little sparkles in it! I love that hint of glam. It’s not overwhelming, just a little glimmer. That ties back into the glittering scones that I originally wanted.

There will also be two built in shaving cabinets above the vanity, with mirrored doors. They will be simple rectangles, without any fancy edging or lighting. I played with the idea of cladding the edges in brass frames, but that wasn’t going to fly with the budget. While these will look a little more utilitarian, I think they’re going to work with the simple, silver bathroom quite well.

Final bathroom design thoughts

While it can be hard to let go of some ideas due to cost, I think you can also see your budget as a creative spur. The challenge of working out how to achieve your look and feel without blowing the budget is actually a great way to get a good creative outcome.

My final thoughts on the design of your bathroom would be:

• Think about how you want the room to function and feel. You want it to be easy to clean, comfortable to use and have a functional amount of storage. You might want it to feel calm, or perhaps you want it to be invigorating with strong colours.
• Start with inspiration images, but don’t get locked on replicating them. Lots of the images I found inspiring look nothing like our finished plan. But they were a good starting place for me to think about colours, textures, layout and materials. See what is common across images, like certain colours, lines or layouts. Work from those broad strokes.
• Always get a sample. Always. Swatch your countertops, your tiles, your paint – everything. Things look very different in showrooms and online because the lighting of your room is so important. Take the time to get samples so you know if it will work. Some of the samples I loved online just did not work in our bathroom.
• Have some fun! I wouldn’t call our bathroom design groundbreaking or trend setting. It’s a simple, classic blue and white bathroom. But we found ways to have fun with it. The glitter in the counter top. The Federation-style floor pattern. The coat of arms toilet roll holder. This is a space you’re going to use every day, so make sure it’s one you’re going to enjoy being in!