Okay, fine. We all know that feeling you get when you walk into someone’s bathroom and it just… sucks. Like they grabbed the most boring beige they could find at Home Depot and called it a day.
I’ll admit it, I used to be that gal. My very first rental had walls the colour “milk tea left out overnight” and I delusionally believed it was “timeless” when it was truly just dull. But think about how we spend time with bathroom colours.
You see them when you wake up in the morning still rubbing the grogginess from your eyes and at night when you’re washing the sleep out of your hair. You essentially spend a lot of time staring at them when you’re getting ready to start and end your day.
So why settle for something that makes you feel… nothing?
I started experimenting with bathroom colours about three years ago. I moved into an flat that came with a teeny tiny en- suite. I mean, there was barely enough space to swing a cat; one small window that looked out into a brick wall and those awful builder-grade white tiles that always look grey no matter what time of day.
I originally wanted to paint everything white to help make it feel bigger, but after two months of living with it, I felt like I was brushing my teeth in the hallway of a hospital. That’s when I decided to paint my first adventurous colour – a rich navy blue on the wall behind the mirror. I remember standing in the paint aisle at Home Depot for twenty minutes rocking back and forth with this little paint sample card thinking “this is either going to look amazing or like I painted my bathroom with a Sharpie.” But hey – it worked!
Instead of feeling sterile, the small space actually felt cozy and enclosed, and the white fixtures popped against the dark wall rather than blending into boring beige oblivion. The trick with bold bathroom colours is picking the right wall to paint. I’ve made this mistake before – learning the hard way when I painted an entire guest bathroom a colour I thought was gorgeous emerald green, but that “looked like a drunken sailor on a boat” when humidity from showers changed the colour.
Now I stick to accent walls – either behind the sink or across from the doorway so it’s the first wall you see when you walk in. My current bathroom is painted a dusty pink colour that everyone told me would clash with “all the things” until they actually saw it. Friends, it’s called “patience” painting a bathroom a fun colour.
Farrow & Ball calls this colour “Setting Plaster” (yes, I splurged — sometimes that high-end paint is worth it), and it’s one of those colours that changes throughout the day. Daylight makes it appear almost neutral but nighttime light reflects warmer making the pink appear more rosy. The best part about this colour is that it complements brass and chrome fixtures alike which was key because I didn’t want to have to replace all of my light fixtures just to update my wall colour.
What I wish someone told me about painting bathrooms though is that your bathroom colour doesn’t just come from your walls. What really made a difference for me was when I started thinking about the overall colour palette – your towels, bath mat, shower curtain, even the colour of your toiletries start to make a bigger impact. I used to have an awkward mishmash of white towels, a blue rug someone gave me for Christmas, and whatevergreen beer platter shower curtain I could find at Walmart.
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Surprise, surprise – it never felt like everything matched. Now, I build my whole palette around that main bathroom colour. In my current scheme, everything revolves around that dusty pink wall in my bathroom – from cream-coloured towels (a warmer white that isn’t as harsh), a woven palm rug to add texture on the floor, and I even bought my shampoo into orangey glass bottles because those amber prescription bottles everyone gets were killing the vibe.
Okay maybe that sounds extreme, but calming your vibe is worth it. If you’re not ready to go full-on Command Marvel with your bathroom colour, start with neutral shades. And by neutral I mean colours that aren’t quite beige but also aren’t brave – like warm grays, muted sage greens, or that elusive perfectly creamy white.
These are also great for renters who are worried about resale or landlords who can’t paint their rental units. I helped my sister paint her rental bathroom this beautiful warm grey colour named “Elephant’s Breath” (bad name, great colour) and when she moved out her landlord actually complimented her on it. My best advice for pulling off neutrals is to layer in different tones and textures.
All beige everything is what makes bathrooms look boring; but beige walls with grey tiles and brass hardware? Now that’s luxe. I’ve watched countless tenants upgrade their builder-basic bathrooms by switching out their cheap chrome towel racks for black ones and adding a coffee-coloured shower curtain in a similar shade of grey.
Keep in mind that lighting affects colour too! I have dimmer switches in both of my bathrooms now because bright bathroom lights wreak havoc on all colour. Warm-coloured LED bulbs (around 2700K if you want to get scientific) make most colours appear warmer and more inviting.
Daylight bulbs and cool-coloured LEDs can make warm colours appear muddy and cooler colours feel harsh. One of my go-to colour combinations is always blue and white with wood accents. It’s not groundbreaking, but hey it works.
I used this combo on a guest bathroom I renovated last year – blue and white tile on the bottom half of the walls, pure white on top, white subway tiles, and a rustic wood floating vanity.
The finished product felt timeless yet modern, like something you’d see in a boutique hotel but actually enjoy living in. Want to paint your bathroom but not sure where to start?
Try one wall! Paint one wall, live with it for a week, then decide if you want to continue that colour on the rest of your walls. Take photos of your bathroom at different times of day because bathrooms have weird lighting; what looks amazing at noon will probably look terrible at 7am.
Trust me on this one. And finally, don’t stress about resale (too much). If seeing your soft sage green bathroom wall freaks out your buyer, then he’ll never be your buyer.
Rule number one for picking bathroom colours: what colours make you feel something? If you want that dramatic charcoal grey that makes you feel like you’re at a spa; or that happy yellow that cheers you up when you’re dragging your feet on your morning commute; or that damn beige that makes you feel like you’ve won at life – go for it. Let your bathroom colours reflect what works for you and your lifestyle, not what you think someone else might want to see.
