The bathroom ceiling? Priorities, I know. But hear me out.
Every night for three months last year I went to sleep thinking about our bathroom and every morning I woke up thinking about our bathroom. Was that tile too dark? Did those taps really go with that tile?
Should we spend more money on the bath? We ripped ours out and got a new one, then spent three months doing the bloody ceiling ourselves so yeah… I have thoughts about bathroom ceilings.
We obsessed over every detail and finished up with a bathroom I’m really proud of.
We’d picked just about everything with military precision. Subway tiles for the walls? Cheque.
Oversized rain shower? Cheque. Even little details like brass drawer pulls and niches either side of the radiator were picked after weeks of research.
But once it was all installed, while the shower was as wonderful as imagined, and the drawers did slide nice and smoothly on their new little brass pulls, something still felt off. It took me a while to work out what it was that I didn’t like about our shiny new bathroom. Stopping at the bathroom door one morning I realised I’d not once looked up at the ceiling.
It was plain old white emulsion, same as every other ceiling. It finally clicked when I was soaking in the bath one evening. I’d plasterbanged the rest of the room so thoroughly but gave the ceiling completely minimal effort.
It was like spending hours on your eye makeup, but not bothering with your hair. Fast forward a few weeks and I was round a friend’s new house. She’d done a brilliant job on her en suite, victoria sponge bathroom tiles throughout, a showstopper copper farm sink that cost more than most of our weekly food shop, plus even added a towel radiator.
As she boasted about the undertones in her new tiles I spotted it. Her ceiling was white. All that money, all that effort and she’d ended up with the same bland ceiling as me.
I didn’t say anything, of course you don’t blow someone’s bathroom when they’ve just spent a small fortune decorating it and invited you round to see. But it did start me thinking. If you spend as much time in your bathroom as I do you start to realise your ceilings are pretty underrated.
Between showering, washing your hands and brushing your teeth at least twice a day you spend a fair few minutes looking around your bathroom. Up is a direction. A few months later we got a crack in our ceiling from the neighbours upstairs ham-fisting their way round a plumbing problem.
Hardly Bollywood; there wasn’t even any smoke but as it emerged from the wall we knew we’d have to repaint. As I reached up for the tin of Dulux Trade White (what else?) I spotted a tester pot of minty mint hidden behind. Similar colour family to the walls but a few shades lighter and WHAM.
It was like magic. Suddenly our bathroom had gone from feeling flat to soaring. It might sound dramatic but when your partner comments on something you spent years ignoring you KNOW you’ve won.
Painting ceilings is brilliant for trying out trends that might be too bold on walls. Your eye is drawn to everything else in the room so you can almost get away with doing what you like up there. Obviously I’ve learned this the hard way.
Some epic wins. But there’s been a few don’t try this at home moments that I’ve had to improvise around (aka repaint). The teal situation took me ages to get right.
For our downstairs toilet I went bold and went for this dark teal colour. It looked great in the pot but as soon as it was on the walls it made the smallest bathroom feel smaller. Also everything sinks when it’s that dark.
Dust, moisture, you name it. Instant spotlight. So after repainting it in a paler version of the same colour (tip: if you’re painting a ceiling it should NEVER be darker than your walls) I realised going lighter could work wonders.
I decided to play it a little safer with our main bathroom. Painted the ceiling the same colour as the walls but used totally different finishes. Matt on the ceiling, eggshell everywhere else.
Similar enough that it feels intentional but different enough that someone would have to really LOOK at your ceiling to notice. Cost about fifteen pounds more in paint and BAM. Your bathroom goes from fully functioning to actually designed.
Don’t mind admitting I got a little slap happy when we moved. New bathroom, blank canvas. I decided to give shiplap a go on ours after spotting it on a house we didn’t end up buying.
Liked the look but hated the paint finish so decided to DIY it. If you’re dreaming of a wooden ceiling don’t be put off by the tidy cuts and ultra-stable houses you see on YouTube. It’s fiddly.
Sat on the floor with a mitre saw, spirit level and a bag of newly expensed swear words for an entire weekend. Honestly the measuring drove me bananas. Our bathroom ceiling was NOT square so every.single.board needed trimming in a different place.
Danny kept suggesting I get someone in but like parenting hormones I was sure I could work it out myself. Eventually got there in the end but I’ll be forever ashamed of board number three. Trimmed from the wrong side and it STILL doesn’t quite line up.
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Hiding nicely behind the door though so not many people will ever notice. It was so worth it though. Wooden ceilings add something that paint alone can’t.
Texture. Movement. Different shading as the light moves around your room making your bathroom feel ten times more expensive than it actually is.
I used plain pine tongue and groove from the builders’ merchant then painted it rather than splash out on the pre-finished kind. Saved about sixty quid and looked exactly the same once painted. Beadboard’s another subtle ceiling idea that works wonders if you’re not blessed with Ikea-level cutting abilities.
We did this in our current bathroom using those clip-together boards you can get from Wickes. Took me an afternoon and was about forty quid all in with paint. Plus the vertical lines make the room feel taller.
Especially handy in our Victorian terrace with its less than lofty ceilings. Oh and contrary to popular belief they’re dead easy to clean. I always assumed ceilings with grooves would trap more dust but they’re actually really easy to keep clean.
Quick wipe with a damp cloth every couple of months and you’re sorted. Easy compared to our last bathroom which had this textured ceiling that was an absolute nightmare to clean. Speaking of getting fancy up there, have you seen what you can do with proper moulding?
Crown moulding round the edge of your bathroom ceiling transforms the space. Taught myself to cut mitres using YouTube HQ (terribly at first- thanks YouTube for letting me waste three lengths of moulding on appalling attempts at a 45 degree cut). Once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s actually really satisfying building up your ceiling like that.
Just went for plain white moulding from Travis Perkins. Nothing special. Painted it white to match the walls and popped it up over two evening sat drinking tea and listening to the radio.
Makes SUCH a difference. Instantly took our bathroom from feeling a bit like a utility space to feeling like a room in a house. About thirty quid all in and made our bathroom look like it was ten times the cost.
I’ve been meaning to try a coffered ceiling for ages now. Not the full Hollywood mirrored and plasterboard job but something as simple as dividing your ceiling into panels using standard moulding. Saw it done recently on a Victorian conversion I visited in Nottingham.
The owner had divided her bathroom ceiling into three neat rectangles then painted the recesses a shade deeper than the frames. Really elevated without being OTT. You can even go FULL Frank Lima and wallpaper your bathroom ceiling.
I KNOW. It sounds crazy but hear me out. I did it (obviously) and it worked SO well.
Tiny botanical print. Nothing too busy. Learned my lesson there after a friend did this tropical monster leaf print and couldn’t sleep at night coz she felt like she was living in the jungle.
Messy enough job to properly annoy you when you’ve got no arms left from hanging wallpaper UP but it’ll blow your mind what a difference it makes. What’s really made me appreciate our bathroom ceiling is lighting. Downlights ALWAYS look like they were an afterthought but when you factor them into your ceiling design it pulls the room together.
I popped three spots on the shower surround to accentuate the shiplap wood and love how they throw shadows across the ceiling as the day goes on. Mistakes I’ve made along the way? Obviously picking dark colours.
Like that teal ceiling. Not only did everything show up on it but it instantly looked dusty. Practicalities are EVERYTHING on a ceiling.
Lighter colours will disguise those dust specks and water rings ten times better than something dark. Textured ceilings are another nightmare for maintenance. Big glamorous coffers look amazing but realistically who’s gonna climb up there with a duster every two weeks?
Simple flat moulding is kinda magic up there. As for costs. Paint is always gonna be your cheapest option.
Buy the best bathroom paint you can afford and you’re looking at about twenty to thirty pounds for a normal sized bathroom. Shiplap/beadboard will set you back about fifty pounds to a hundred depending on the size of your room.
Architectural moulding’s another thirty pounds to sixty depending on how boss you wanna be.
All of the above are totally viable weekend projects if you can wield a brush up a ladder and aren’t COMPLETELY useless with a mitre saw. I say that as someone who electrocuted herself proving she could install shiplap ceiling so DON’T be that person. Get sparkies in to do the wiring.
Trust me. I learnt that lesson the hard way. Thinking about our bathroom ceiling has honestly changed my relationship with my bathroom.
The first couple of weeks after we finished it I was obsessed. Stared at it every time I brushed my teeth, pondered what else I could do to make it ‘perfect’. Then one day I just stopped caring.
The joy of throwing yourself into a project like that is once it’s finished you forget how crap it looked before and just appreciate your hard work. Even if that hard work is literally above your head.
