I feel like the strangest thing about design is sometimes the rooms people remember most aren’t the ones you think. For me, it’s the guest bathroom. It’s tiny – only four feet by six feet – and most guests spend maybe two minutes in there at most.
It’s not my kitchen, where Chris and I poured our entire savings account into new cabinets. It’s not even my living room, which took me three weeks to choose the right wall colour. – But every time someone comes to visit me in Decatur, the thing they always comment on is the guest bathroom. How did I pick the hand towels?
Did I special-order that paint colour? Here’s the thing about powder rooms: People will know you spent time and money there – even if you rent and can only paint with removable stain.
Photo by Brent Darcey Believe me, I didn’t always think guest bathrooms were that important.
To me, they were an afterthought. “Oh yeah, guests will use that bathroom. I guess I should slap some paint on the wall and hang that yard sale mirror I’ve been meaning to spray paint.” But people do notice. SO many people notice.
It started happening about eight months ago when my sister- in-law Amy came to visit me. Amy is NOT the type to oooh and aww over countertops like Kristen would. If anything, she’s more likely to say I missed a spot on the baseboards when she’s helping me clean.
But she walked into our bathroom and asked me where I got the hand towels. And then she asked me about the paint colour. Two weeks later, my neighbour Karen walked in and asked me where I got the HAND TOWELS.
And then Chris’s mum spent five minutes staring at my light fixture and asking where I found it. Okay,okay – people care about guest bathrooms! They’re PERFORMANCE ROOMS.
Everything in there has to be meticulously planned because guests don’t know your plumbing randomly explodes if you turn the tap above the sink a certain way. They don’t know that the toilet in our master tank needs to rinse for an extra thirty seconds before it shuts off. When guests come to visit, they experience your house unfiltered for the first time.
Which means everything about it is hyper apparent. Photo by Brent Darcey Which brings me to my light fixture conundrum. Yes, lighting is important in every room of your house.
But damn does it matter in small bathrooms! I ended up finding this lamp at an estate sale about a year ago purely by accident. I wasn’t even shopping for bathroom stuff – I was buying kitchen things in Kennesaw when I stumbled across this little ceramic table lamp that was marked down to $12.
I ended up buying it and brought it home, only to realise it was too small for our bedroom nightstand. I didn’t want it to clutter up somewhere else, so I put it on a windowsill in our guest bathroom and haven’t looked back since. Now, it’s not a primary light source or anything, but it casts this warm glow that makes the whole room feel airier.
Cozier. More like a legit powder room and less like a cement box you pee in before rushing out to catch your bus. It was nerve-racking at first, making sure this was a lamp that could handle humidity and all that jazz, but I avoid placing it anywhere directly above the shower drain and it’s been fine for nine months now.
As for storage – I was REALLY struggling with this for awhile. Guest bathrooms are tiny, so where are guests supposed to put their phones while they’re washing their hands? Or rings if they decide to take them off?
I’d catch visitors awkwardly juggling items on their wrists as they searched for somewhere to set their phone. Or I’d watch them make damn sure not to set it TOO close to the water on the counter, which made ME worried about it falling in. Eventually, I conceded and bought a floating shelf that sits about eye-level right next to the sink.
It’s literally only six inches deep, but it houses a few decorative items and leaves space for guests to set down whatever they need. Photo by Brent Darcey I spent probably $25 on wood and shelf brackets from Home Depot, and it took me an hour to hang because I couldn’t find a stud until I was almost sweaty and defeated. But holy crap, shelf.
It holds our spare snake plant, a candle I occasionally light, and it leaves just enough space next to them for guests to set down their phones, rings, glasses, keys, whatever. Trust me when I say that if guests start using it without you having to explain it, you’ve successfully integrated PANT PRINCEIPLES into your home. Oh, towels.
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How I was stupid about you for years. Guests would come over and I’d grab whatever spare towels I had lying around, usually the ones I moved to our guest bathroom because they didn’t feel soft enough to stay in our master. What a dumb, dumb mentality.
Instead of cutting corners, I bought two really nice hand towels from Target that I keep in our guest bathroom at all times. They’re warm grey – nothing crazy, maybe $15 each? – but they’re thick, plush, and won’t show every lint particle like white towels do. Speaking of grey… Photo by Brent Darcey I tried about six different shades of paint on that wall until I settled on this almost sage colour.
Sounds crazy to paint six different patches on the wall of your closet-sized bathroom, but trust me when I say it’ll save you a ton of time and grief in the long run if you test paint colours like you mean it. Once I found this green, though, so many people told me it gave the bathroom a “spa vibe” or made them feel “calmed.” It’s not too warm, it’s not too cool. It creates this cozy cocoon that makes guests forget how tiny the room actually is.
I don’t know about you guys, but rectangles bore me. We replaced our builder-grade mirror with this round beauty I found at HomeGoods for $30. It’s not anything crazy – you can probably find something similar anywhere these days.
But rounding out that corner with a mirror softens the whole room. Plus the skinny brass frame matches our light fixture and our door knob, which really pulled the whole room together. Photo by Brent Darcey Speaking of plants…I’ve cycled through about three bathroom plants before deciding nothing dies faster than fiddle leaf figs in my guest bathroom.
After attempting to keep a Facebook-worthy fig tree alive, I went with some really popular hanging pothos. They lasted… awhile. But after about four months, they started to look sad and pathetic, which is the opposite vibe I’m going for in this shiny little oasis.
So now I have a snake plant chilling on the floating shelf. It’s been over a year and that thing still looks alive. TAKE NOTES.
I replaced our cheap plastic soap dispenser with this ceramic little guy that matches our paint colour scheme. Again, it sounds dumb, but guests notice these things more than you think! I refill it with a nice-smelling soap that doesn’t dry out their hands – currently in love with Mrs.
Meyer’s Lavender. It’s barely a scent at all but smells amazing. It’s the little things.
Photo by Brent Darcey I considered replacing the disgusting white ceramic tile we have all over our guest bathroom floor, but it seemed like overkill since we’d rented for so long and were thinking about buying this house. Instead of rug ripping, I just bought a cute little bath mat in navy and called it a day. It brings some warmth to the bright white tiles and adds texture to an otherwise cold room.
Not to mention navy is a lot more forgiving than beige when it comes to hidden stains. Bonus points if you have a small basket under your sink like I do to stash extra TP, cleaners, or a small bottle of hand lotion. Mine’s wicker and about shoebox-sized, but it gives guests supplies if they need them AND adds some visual interest to an otherwise stainless steel, marble countertop world.
And that, my friends, is how you make over your guest bathroom on the cheap. Spend extra time and effort on the small things (decorative lighting! towels! cute baskets!) and your guests WILL notice.
And bonus: Small rooms tend to highlight any flaws tenfold.
A cluttered counter looks cluttered; it doesn’t look homey. A broken towel hook looks crappy, not vintage. But nice lighting fixtures?
Cute towels? Thoughtful, functional storage? They’ll feel like luxe details you’d normally only afford in bigger rooms.
For whatever reason, my guests remember how my guest bathroom made THEM feel more than any specific design element. Relaxed. Welcome.
Thoughtful. Make your guests feel that way and you can’t go wrong.
