Let me guess: your bathroom is boring. Pale grey paint, perhaps off-white tiles. It doesn’t really spark joy, does it?
You may have had good reasons for playing it safe – maybe you weren’t planning on living there forever, maybe you wanted the whole house to feel “matching” – but wherever you lived, chances are your bathroom was more boring than it had to be. Disclaimer: this article contains photos of bright pink bathrooms. Look, I get it.
Colour can be daunting. I’d avoided painting any rooms in our house for ages because I was scared of getting it wrong.
Then I realised that Danny and I spend more time brushing our teeth than doing pretty much anything else.
Do the maths: how many years do you live in a place? Twice a day it’s toothbrushing o’clock. How long do you spend thinking about the resale value of your toilet tiles?
Five minutes, tops. That maths just doesn’t add up. I’d been reading about using colour to transform rooms – you probably know this already, but yellow makes you feel happier; orange is great for kitchens; blue is calming and good for bedrooms.
But what if we’ve been approaching colour all wrong? Bathroom shampoos are bright orange and pink for a reason – they’re uplifting! Who wants to wake up to boring walls?
Especially when you could wake up to a Caribbean sea-inspired turquoise? ! So that’s what I did. Danny nearly died when I told him about my plans, but I’m so glad I took the plunge.
We still live with that turquoise paint today – it actually brightens my teeth when I look in the mirror. Pro tip: use matte paint for walls you don’t want to clean very often (nicer kitchen cabinets are usually gloss, because hello grease stains), and go for gloss paint if you’re going bold – it’s easier to clean! Our landlord actually kept the turquoise when we moved out (three years later!) because he said it was the first bathroom any of his tenants had ever been excited to spend time in.
Even he recognised that bathrooms should make you feel good. Bright bathrooms shouldn’t be scary! I’m still learning what works and what doesn’t, but I’m going to share with you everything I know about picking bathroom colours.
We’ll look at rules to follow and rules to break, tried-and-tested combo colours, and everything I wish I’d known when I painted my first bathroom turquoise. First up: don’t be afraid of bright colours. Especially if you’re stuck with a windowless bathroom – dark colours can feel cosy in there, rather than oppressive.
Pinterest will make you think every wall needs to be a different colour – it doesn’t. Pick one statement wall and go wild – the rest of the room can be boring if you like. All the rules will be unveiled… Are you ready to learn how to pick colours for your bathroom?
Ready, set, go! Fear is the biggest thing holding people back from colourful bathrooms. Afraid it won’t match?
Buy a tester pot and live with it for a week. Scared it’ll date? Light from the sun changes how a colour looks massively from morning to evening – what looks too bright in the sunshine might look perfect once your pick your shower cream at night.
Scared everyone will hate it? Fuck off, that’s what I say. If your friends don’t like it, they can stick their tongues firmly out of your house.
Everyone else will think you’ve got great taste. Trust me. Ask my mum – she thought my bathroom was “absolutely fabulous”.
Afraid it won’t sell? Colour is by far the easiest (and cheapest!) way to transform a room. When we moved house last year, I picked a colour combo I loved; friends and family loved it so much they commented on it before noticing the new kitchen.
When you’re selling a house, people will spend more time looking at whether they like the furniture and how big it feels than what colour the walls are. And if you do repaint before selling? Spend £30 on paint and a couple of weekends, seriously.
Afraid it’ll be too much maintenance? Gloss paint is your friend – water rinses straight off! You can easily remove toothpaste marks and won’t need to repaint after every cough/sneeze-induced children’s explosion.
Afraid your partner/spouse/kids will hate it? Come over to my blog where we don’t fear bold colours. Seriously – talk to them about how bright colours make you feel.
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When I told Danny how much happier turquoise made me feel when I looked in the mirror, he realised that this wasn’t some ridiculous whim of mine, and actually bright colours made sense for a bathroom. Afraid you’ve lived with magnolia walls for too long and will accidentally buy home-ruining colours? Buy some tester pots.
Most shops sell scaffander tester pots these days for like, £3. Live with them for a few days, then decide. You can always repaint!
Hang on, haven’t we already covered this? Okay, maybe fear *is* the biggest thing. Let me ask you this: what looks more outdated, a bright turquoise bathroom or a beige bathroom from the early 2000s?
I look at my friend’s mum’s orange bathroom and think “Bold! They’re owning the vibe, coz it’s their bathroom!” But shame on me for painting my bathroom bright turquoise in the year 2000? Easy recipe for disaster.
If you really can’t commit to a whole bathroom of bright colour, start small. Bright shower curtain, funky towels, colourful tile strips on the wall. You can even get peel-and-stick wallpaper these days so there’s no need to paint!
But let’s say you go for it. You take the damn bathroom plunge. Ready to pick your colours?
Here’s what you need to know: White makes every colour look good. But that doesn’t mean your bathroom should feel like a clinic. If you’re going to have white walls, throw in some splashes of colour to brighten things up – colourful soap dispensers, toilet rolls, plant pots – go wild!
Embrace the matt. Gloss paint is way easier to clean than matt, sure – but if you’re not going bright, stick with matt paints. They give the room more texture, which will make it feel warmer.
Natural light changes how colours look massively. This is the trick that taught me everything about how colour affects rooms. Paint your walls turquoise and look at it in the morning versus evening.
Natural light makes colours look brighter and clearer; artificial light emphasises the warmer parts of the colour. Make notes on how the paint looks at different times of day, then pick the colour you love most! Light on walls can vary hugely depending on where the bulbs are positioned, what colour they’re painted, and how many bulbs you have hanging down from the ceiling.
Try and position your lightbulbs so they shine directly onto the walls – that way you’ll get the true colour. If you can, install a dimmer switch. Being able to adjust the intensity of the bulb will let you see how colours look in different lighting.
Hell, you might even find yourself enjoying a morning shower in the low light! Look at lots of photos before you decide. Seriously, spend an hour scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram bathrooms.
You’ll start to see what colours work together and what clashes horribly. Buy tester pots. Splash out on the nice shops and buy proper testers, not just miniatures of their 500ml tubs.
Test the colours on your wall – natural light will make them look lighter than the pot. Live with the testers for a few days before committing! Once you’ve picked your two colours, it’s time to head online.
All paint companies have a ‘simulator’ on their website where you can plug in your room dimensions and ‘paint’ your walls any way you like. Make sure you pick TWO different finishes – this’ll help you visualise how they’ll look IRL. (There’s nothing more annoying than thinking you’ve picked the perfect combo, only to find out they’re both gloss finish.) Love how a paint looks online but not keen on the brand? Most companies sell ‘sandtender’ pots these days, so buy the smallest size the first time around and live with it for a few days.
Easy.
Unless you’re a masochist who loves painting rooms, it’s best to stick to two colours max. Remember: you can always introduce colourful accessories later if you decide you want more – you can’t simply paint less!
If you’re struggling to decide where to splurge your budget colour and where to play it safe with white, pick a feature wall. Here are some things to feature: If the thought of painting your whole bathroom is just too much – start small! Paint your: It can be totally overwhelming trying to pick paint colours, but it doesn’t have to be!
Just remember: the worst that happens is you spend a Saturday afternoon painting your bathroom back to white. It’s not the end of the world, trust me. I want to hear about your bathroom colour nightmares and victories – drop me a comment below!
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