Pinterest boards, Instagram pics, design magazines – I was drowning in bathroom porn and didn’t even realise it until I sat down to actually plan my renovation. I had tabs upon tabs upon tabs of bathroom photos open in my web browser. Who knew there were so many bath-related hashtags on Instagram?
Or blogs dedicated to bathroom design tips that I didn’t know existed until the moment I bought this house. I had folders on my desktop labelled things like “tile maybe?? ?” and “omg this lighting tho.” Three months into planning our budget-friendly bathroom gut reno and I was deep in a rabbit hole of beautiful photos curated specifically to make me feel bad about my teacher salary budget. Pin one bathroom from, like, Architectural Digest magazine that has all the gorgeous marble and brass and mood lighting you could dream of, your brain will automatically calculate how to make that vision work for you … for about two seconds.
Long enough for you to think that yes, maybe you could use subway tile instead of marble and semi-generic cabinet fixtures in place of those beautiful brass ones….before you remember your budget. I found the most gorgeous moody bathroom with dark green subway tile and ALL THE BRASS, and I legitimately said “oh wow” out loud while standing in my otherwise empty living room.
My boyfriend heard me from the kitchen and came to see what I was looking at. “That’s beautiful,” he said as he examined the photo. “Also that vanity is probably more expensive than our car.” He was not wrong, friends.
But what I’ve realised about collecting too many pins is that you don’t have to have every single thing to get that wow factor you’re searching for. Figure out what piece of that perfect image speaks to you the most and channel your inner DIY goddess to make it work. Let me explain what I mean using the moody green bathroom above as an example.
The thing I loved most wasn’t actually the marble countertop (although duh, gorgeous). It was how luxurious and calming the deep green felt all at once. Dark and moody, but also welcoming.
Like a luxury spa bathroom that also feels like home. Yes, the brass hardware was beautiful and added to the chic vibe, but what I loved most was how intentional the bathroom felt. They obviously didn’t choose random tiles and fixtures that fought with each other, every design choice complemented the next.
So what did I do? I started writing tiny lists next to my favourite saved images. Green bathroom, for example: could I do subway tile in a similar shade of green in normal ceramic instead of whatever fancy schmancy tile they used?
Sure. Replace those crazy expensive brass fixtures with oil-rubbed bronze that actually looks like brass? Probably.
Marble countertops? Heck no, but what about quartz or something similar that would give me that same brightness and openness without begging me to take out a home equity loan? I did this for every single bathroom that gave me feelings.
Saved photos that made me feel relaxed, energized, like a minimalist guru – whatever mood I was going for that day, I let those pics guide me. Sort of like breaking down poetry with my high school students. What are the colours doing?
How does natural light play in this space? What textures are they mixing? Was there a painting or book that made you feel similar to how you feel when you look at this photo?
Be critical. Figure out what details bring you back. One photo on Pinterest actually changed my whole mindset on our bathroom.
It was approximately six feet by eight feet, so not much bigger than ours, but it felt like they fit so.much.room. into that tiny square footage. The upper tile stopped maybe halfway up the wall instead of two feet from the ceiling like most bathrooms I’d seen. They used the same large tile on the floor and up the wall, creating a cohesive feel as opposed to gridlocked quarters.
The fixtures were basic white nothing specials, but placed in such a way that looked intentional. Thoughtful choices that complemented the entire room rather than distract from it. I printed this photo.
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Yep, ink jetted right onto paper from my school laptop (don’t tell the administration) and taped it to our bathroom wall during demo. My boyfriend thought I was crazy, but it helped me remember my priorities when I started veering toward nicer options that would have derailed our budget on details that wouldn’t make as much of an impact. Honestly, bathroom photos from magazines were even more helpful than Pinterest.
More realistic. More designed. More “wow this bathroom belongs in a magazine because your life isn’t awesome enough to actually afford this” inspiration.
But it taught me so much about proportions and grouping similar textures together without looking cluttered. There was this one spread from either Better Homes & Gardens or Sunset magazine – I can’t remember which – that featured white penny tiles with black grout, an antique-y vanity with round fixtures on top. While I loved the contrast of black and white together, what really stuck with me was how they paired curved shower fixtures with straight countertop edges.
They offset similar shapes to make the space feel balanced and thought out without any one element competing for attention. Obviously we couldn’t afford that exact vanity – they make those old-school sinks for a reason: YOLO expensive – and my husband vetoed the super arched shower head because “what if you actually want to wash your hair?” But we found a basic white flat-front cabinet at Ikea for…$200?! My father-in-law helped us hang some antique-y hardware I found at the local salvage store on Amazon (total game changer, by the way), and let me tell you: it. looks. amazing.
Plus, those penny tiles were cheaper than subway tile, and the black grout hides water spots and soap scum like you would not believe. Most bath inspiration photos aren’t going to show you the not-so-glam parts. Cleaning around that gorgeous oversized clawfoot tub?
Not as easy as it looks when you shower regularly and maybe aren’t the neatest human being to ever walk the planet. Maintaining that open shelf display of perfectly stacked and colour-coordinated white towels? Please.
Your bathrooms don’t come with personal stylists. Having your vanity attached to the wall instead of floating like some sort of modern-day masterpiece? Yeah, good luck screwing that bad boy into your wall without finding… something.
Wild things happen when you open up your walls, my friends. Also known as electrical, plumbing, and “whoever owned this house before us definitely cheated on their taxes” surprises. Fun fact: I had all those fantasies after seeing gorgeous photos of bathrooms that used natural stone tile with WIDE grout lines between each tile.
In pictures, they look amazing. Organic and spa-like and expensive AF. But once I went to the tile store and physically felt sample tiles in my hands, I knew that those wide gaps between each tile would be a maintenance nightmare.
Soap scum would WASN’T BUILD UP in the gaps between quarter-inch grout lines. Never. Instead, I found porcelain tile with a stone finish in a darker colour so when I do inevitably have to scrub grout, at least those wide gaps are hiding in a non-light colour.
Same effect as the bathrooms I was inspired by, without spending my weekends scraping stupid grout with a toothbrush. It became sort of fun, actually, picking apart these photos and stealing elements from three or four different places to make my own perfect bathroom. Kind of like that green tile inspiration.
And the whole floor-to-wall tiled vibe.
And hardware that made me feel all the vintage feels. It doesn’t look like any of those photos exactly, but it absolutely feels like our bathroom.
Like us. Full disclosure: my renovated bathroom will never be featured in an issue of Architectural Digest. My lighting still could be better, yes I wish I would’ve invested in better storage options, and YES, sometimes there are water spots on my bathroom mirror because kids.
But every morning when I’m taking a lazy minute to brush my teeth before school I love spending time in there. I feel calm and relaxed when I’m washing my face, instead of freaking out about the day ahead of me. It flows better for how we live and actually works for our lifestyle.
And that, my friends, is what counts more than having a photo-worthy bathroom. Psst… Close some of those tabs. Your computer will literally thank you.
