When someone walked into my guest bathroom for the first time and said “This feels like a cave”, I wanted to hide. Between me and the cave walls was three weekends of painting in eggshell finish. Turns out I wasn’t too subtle with the charcoal grey.
Lesson learned. Now though, as someone who’s had navy blue walls in three different bathrooms over the past two years, I’d like to convince you not to make the same mistake I did. Because while there are a few extra details to keep in mind when working with dark colours in a small room, they don’t actually all suck.
Baths and showers can feel particularly luxurious against dark walls, and even small enclosed powder rooms can seem less cramped and more stylish than their off-white siblings. Here’s how to make it work.
My first lesson, clearly, was all about lighting.
I thought one overhead fixture would suffice. But because it was recessed and had a yellowish bulb, it only created shadows. Instead, now I opt for at least three light sources in any dark bathroom.
First up, LED strip lights tucked behind the mirror (this was a game changer for me – got mine from Screwfix for about £45), then a proper vanity light to light up your face instead of creating scary film special effects, and finally something I didn’t think I would end up loving: a table lamp. Yup, a literal table lamp. Sticking out on one of my floating shelves is a brass table lamp with a white shade from West Elm (this one, £89).
It hangs on a narrow floating shelf that I installed at about shoulder height and LICENCES. The warm glow helps the whole room feel like a fancy hotel instead of, well, a cave. Trust me, you want the lamp.
Just make sure it’s not too close to any water sources. Please. Another trick I picked up along the way?
Keep everything shiny. Once I lived with a bathroom that had one small mirror and matte cabinet fronts AND felt bored of it. Everything looked like it sucked the light right out of the room.
Now I’m trying to find any excuse to bounce light back into the room: big mirror, obviously, but also glossy tiles instead of matte (I used dark green subway tiles with a crackle glaze finish that almost look black at a distance, but reflect every inch of brightness), chrome shower curtain rod instead of matte black (that black will photograph better, I know it), and one that’s kind of tipped me over the edge: glass shelves instead of wood or metal. Mirrored would be better, but you probably can’t have the whole bathroom that. Speaking of glass shelves.
LOL I actually never planned on including this in here, but accidentally found the perfect example of what I’m talking about. Looking for a place to store my toiletries after shampooing my hair one day, I grabbed a floating shelf from Ikea. The SIMPLE SPEC shelf is made up of clear tempered glass bracket sets and cost me about £12.
Minor detail, but it blends right into the dark wall but also catches any upward-facing light in the subtlest way that somehow makes the entire corner feel less weighty. Your towels and bathmat should be white. Obviously.
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Wrong. Sure, white is great, but once everything else in the room is dark it will look like you forgot to laundry. Instead, I look for creamy coloured towels and soft greens.
No bright colours, because yea, that will not go well. But things like sage, cream, even grey towels will feel refreshed against dark walls. I found this beautiful Turkish cotton bathmat in the palest shade of blush pink and was fully prepared for it to clash with my charcoal walls.
It doesn’t! Because the shade is so soft. Find a mat that feels like a cloud.
Same goes for other little details. A simple white soap dispenser? Been there, done that.
Try white soap dispensers but in marble or linen-y stone. Small indoor plant that can handle being dried out sometimes? Cheque. (Mine’s a pothos, never fails.) Small pieces of art?
I have three small vintage botanical prints in my darkest bathroom. They’re black ink drawings of herbs on cream paper, hung in lightweight oak frames. £8 each from this online print shop. DON’T SKIP ON ART IN YOUR BATHROOM.
Truly feels like the final piece that says “I put thought into this”. When you paint your walls and countertops and tiles dark, they not only hide every water spot and dust bunny, they also seem to obscure texture and edges. Gone are my days of stumbling into a cabinet door or hitting my knee on the corner of a shelf.
Choose jewellery boxes and woven baskets in natural fibres that have some visual bulk to them, and look for cabinet pulls and hooks in shiny metals. If you can swing brass, great! But even DIY-ing some bright chrome versions will help draw your eye around the room.
One thing I learned is that dark colours can make a bathroom feel a little… chilly.
Especially since it’s also one room where you’re pretty likely to be barefoot and largely nude. I eventually sprung for a heated towel rail (not the hug-your-whole-body kind, just the smaller version that attaches to your shower/tub.
Mine’s from Victorian Plumbing and was around £120) and it has honestly transformed the mornings (and nights) I spend in there. Warmed up towels don’t just feel extra luxurious: they balance out the coolness that dark colours can bring to a room. Look, no one wants to spend six months redecorating their bathroom only to get halfway through and decide “maybe white would’ve been better”.
I’ve seen it too many times. So if you’re going dark, go dark. Paint all four walls.
Use the true black, not the dark grey trying to pass as black. It’s far easier to lighten up a room with bright towels and brass fixtures than it is to darken a room after the fact. Trust.
