I was drinking my morning coffee six months ago and actually looking at our downstairs toilet for the first time in years, and cringed. We’d moved into this house three years ago and hadn’t changed a thing about it. Magnolia walls.
Classic. Because that’s what everyone does right? Accept the magnolia and get on with life.
Until you’re washing your face at 6am with a mug in one hand and realise that boring pale beige is actually making you feel dirty every time you enter your bathroom. Not just bland – but depressing.
I mean I spend enough time feeling ugly about other stuff.
Didn’t need my toilet walls weighing in on it too. Problem is picking paint for bathrooms is seriously stressful if you’ve never done it before. Because you can’t just buy whatever looks lovely on the tin, right?
Speak from experience here. When we first moved into our first flat (age twenty-three, hadn’t a clue what I was doing) I decided I was being super cool painting our bathroom this dark charcoal colour. Looked great in the tester pot.
Bloody horrific on the walls of a bathroom. Also – and this was the annoying bit – it highlighted absolutely everything. Water rings, toothpaste splodges, that weird dust that you swear collects in your bathroom even if you clean it every day (what is that dust?).
Ended up spending my entire weekend off redoing it with something lighter. Phil made fun of me for years over it. Still brings it up when I get too big for my boots with my decorating prowess.
But I learned a valuable lesson from that debacle. Some colours are MUCH better suited to bathrooms than others. Not just ones you think will look nice – but ones that are practical.
Ones that won’t make you look like death when you’re tottering around at half past gone, ones that won’t emphasise every smudge and water ring and ones that won’t suddenly change colour based on if you have the overhead light on or just the mirror one. I’ve lived with lots of different paint colours in bathrooms over the years and I’ve picked out the ones that I’ve learnt really are bathroom champions. They work well with whatever fixtures you already have in there; be that chrome taps and shower fittings or brass towel rails or white tiles or wooden vanity units – or like most people’s houses – a random mish mash of everything.
Cream/Sage/Warm whites As above – white is always going to work. But be careful which white you go for. I don’t mean that harsh, bleach white that makes everything look stark.
Or that blue-ey white that makes you look muddy in photographs – thank god I checked before painting our bathroom that teal colour. (That was when my sister stayed over and spent half the time complaining that she looked ill whenever she used our bathroom.) Go for whites that have just a hint of warmth to them. Impossible to explain but look for whites with just the teeniest hint of cream or yellow tones. We have this warm white in our ensuite and it is glorious – but it took me three seperate trips to B&Q because I’d nervously buy the sample pots and then chicken out of buying the tin.
Literally lived with it for months and never once thought ‘bugger this I hate it’. It just makes everything else in the room look nicer. The chrome shower fittings look more high-end, the wooden shelf Phil put up to dry our hand towels looks like it was part of some sort of coherent plan rather than thrown up there for practicality and even my mismatched bundle of towels looks coordinated.
Whites are tricky because those little sample pots aren’t big enough to really see the colour. Get big squares painted so you can see what you’re going for. Paint them on different walls if you can; morning light versus afternoon light versus artificial bathroom light can change how the colour looks dramatically and bathroom lighting is ALWAYS weird.
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If white scares you too much – and hey, I get that. We all love a bit of colour. But warm greys are SUCH a failsafe.
Now I’m not talking cool grey. That was what I did wrong in our flat. Warm grey.
With brown or beige tones. It looks modern without being scary and goes with pretty much everything. I’ve seen bathrooms that look incredible painted grey with black furniture and equally nice ones with brass taps and stuff.
It’s the Kim Kardashian of paint colours; practically neutral but not plain. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever include sage green in a list like this but boy was I wrong. Hated the thought of it at first; green bathrooms can go wrong SO easily can’t they?
Too bright and it’s got that pong-y smell-of-a-lime-bubble you dread. Too dark and it’s dated-80s-shower-room nasty. But this grey-ish sage.. wow.
It’s so refreshing. Calming when you first get up (honestly we could all do with that) makes white fittings stand out and look clean and crisp and people think you’ve spent hundreds on things that you only spent twenty quid on. Painted my sisters downstairs toilet this about a year and a half ago – she thought I’d lost it with the colour choices but she’d seen me do her living room and liked how it turned out so had faith.
Now every single person who uses that toilet comments on how “nice and spa- like” it smells. Looks amazing with her Next brass mirror and white subway tiles but I’ve seen pics online of people using the same colour with chrome fittings and marble and it looked just as nice. Okay..
Nobody tells you this but your bathroom paint colour needs to live WITH your hectic bathroom life. Splashes, steam, toothpaste etc. can all wreak havoc on colours that aren’t forgiving. Lighter colours are usually better for hiding those little imperfections but there are always exceptions to this rule.
Light blues can look lovely but be careful you don’t go TOO blue. I mean grey/blue colours so subtle that you think they’re grey in some lighting. These are great if you’ve gone for white fittings/built in furniture as it adds to that crisp, clean vibe without making your bathroom feel like it has a theme.
Just stay away from anything that shouts COASTAL COTTAGE at you if that’s not the vibe you’re going for. I’ll always recommend doing the majority of your walls in a warm white and THEN picking one wall (the one behind the toilet or sink is usually bathroom-sqquad favourite) and painting it in a slightly deeper colour.
Soft mushroom grey behind the bathroom mirror or sage green on the wall your towel rail is against.
You still get that little pop of colour without it being too much if you’re suspicious about doing a full wall. The colours I stay WELL clear of? Trendy colours – remember when like half of Instagram went mad for that specific shade of duck egg blue?
Hideous. And anything that only looks nice when your bathroom is perfect. Life’s stressful enough in the mornings without your paint choice screaming at you.
Learned quite quickly that the paint finish is almost as important as the colour. Going for a semi-gloss or satin finish is always best for bathrooms because they’re better at coping with moisture and, when – not if – toothpaste ends up on your wall, can be wiped down super easily. They will show up any imperfections in your wall prep more than say a matt finish but I honestly don’t mind because wiping down the walls is worth it.
For me, the colours that I tend to gravitate towards time and time again are ones that seamlessly blend into the background. Ones that make whatever you’ve put into the room; towels, pictures, plants, that super expensive soap you bought yourself as a treat look good without competing with it.
