EP36 Design Ideas For Compact Bathrooms

Is your compact bathroom in need of a makeover? Discover the secrets to transforming even the tiniest spaces into stylish sanctuaries that prioritize both form and function. This episode sheds light on innovative design strategies perfect for space-constrained environments like London's bustling metropolis. From clever storage solutions such as recessed niches and flush medicine cabinets to the illusionary magic of floating fixtures, we unpack the essentials for a sleek and spacious feel. Get ready to revolutionize your bathroom with vertical storage tips and over-the-door options that keep your sanctuary clutter-free and organized.

We also guide you through our comprehensive five-pillar renovation process, tailored to ensure a seamless transformation of your space. By the end of this episode, you'll be armed with practical insights and a treasure trove of free resources available at southplacestudiocom. Whether it's planning permission, kitchen design, or lighting expertise you seek, our curated guides are here to support every step of your renovation journey. Let us empower you with the knowledge to craft a bathroom that is not only functional but also a reflection of your, sophisticated style.

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Hi I'm your host, Tash South I'm an Interior Designer and Renovation Consultant.
Each episode of How To Renovate is short, but brimming with practical advice to help you manage your renovation project with confidence and success.

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Chapters

• 1:32 Design Tips for Compact Bathrooms
• 11:40 Renovation Resource Overview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:33

Hello, hello everybody, tash here and welcome to episode 33 of how to Renovate. In this episode we're talking bathrooms. Now, as a renovation consultant, I get a lot of questions about bathrooms, and I think that's because here in London they are generally really small spaces, depending on kind of where you live the bathrooms especially in kind of close to the city, central London the spaces tend to be quite small, and so people really struggle with fitting in everything that they need into their bathrooms and for it to function well and also remain a clear, calm space without bottles everywhere and not enough storage. And so I thought I'd do an episode on design ideas for compact bathrooms. Let's get into it. Everything I teach about renovations falls under my five pillar process, and the information in this episode falls under pillar one, planning. Let's get into the episode.

Speaker 1: 2:43

So, design ideas for compact bathrooms. Firstly, I would say storage, storage, storage. So incorporate smart storage solutions into your small bathroom, because nothing helps more for keeping a clear, calm, uncluttered space than storage. So make sure you can fit in some niches. If you're renovating, if you're doing a from from scratch renovation, you can create niches into the wall, which are those little boxes and shelves which which are flush with the wall, recessed shelving. You can build recessed niches into the shower walls above the sink for storing toiletries, all the kind of bottles of shampoo, conditioner and other essentials, and this really keeps the items right there where you need them, but without really cluttering up the space too much. You can just keep out what you need in the little niches and of course, it's always really lovely to put something pretty in there. Perhaps if you've got a niche by a bath, you can put a candle or something. That looks attractive as well if you're incorporating proper storage elsewhere also, and that by that I mean closed storage.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Another one is a medicine cabinet above the sink. I love a flush medicine cabinet, so this is one that sits within the wall. So when you look at it from the outside it looks like there's just a mirror stuck directly onto the wall, but when you open the door, obviously there's a recessed cabinet in there. They're never very deep, they only ever wide enough for an electric toothbrush or one bottle width, but it's amazing how much extra space this gives you. So again, if you're renovating, if you're renovating from scratch and you've got the opportunity to use the space behind your walls, to use your cavity walls then definitely fit one of these. It's just dual purpose you can have, obviously, use it as a mirror, because it's got a mirror door. You can include a socket in there so you can charge your toothbrushes in there. Then obviously it's got the storage as well. You can also get ones with integrated lighting so you can get your electrician to run a cable to it, and it also provides this kind of mood lighting or task lighting in the bathroom. So I'm a massive fan of these cabinets.

Speaker 1: 4:58

If you can find one that suits your style in your bathroom, then I would say, definitely go for one of these. It just provides really good secret, hidden storage without protruding into the room and taking up visual space. It just makes everything a lot more streamlined. And tip number two is to float the fixtures. So by this I mean lifting stuff up off the floor, so having a floating toilet, so a wall-mounted toilet or wall-mounted vanity unit. So this little trick visually it allows the eye to see underneath the items, which makes it seem bigger than it is. It makes it seem more spacious than it is because you can see wall to wall. It just makes the room feel a little less cramped, a little bit more spacious when you can see the entire floor, things like showers. You can go wet room style, in which case you might be able to tile all the way across, and again, using the same material across the whole floor will make it seem more spacious. So doing this just gives the illusion of more space and makes it seem more spacious, and it's a great trick for compact bathrooms.

Speaker 1: 6:03

And then next we've got maximise vertical space. So this one, again, is about storage. So if you can find items to put in your bathroom, so storage where you can allow for or plan for vertical storage, this means that it can be narrow. So again, when you're storing items in the bathroom, you don't need big, bulky space, you need item. You need storage for narrow things, bottles, towels, which you can fold up, quite small, so the items stored in a bathroom aren't generally large. So you really can maximize little narrow spaces but make them vertical, make them floor to ceiling, or, again, if you can get ones that you can float off the floor, for the trick that we just talked about for the visual space, you can do that. And so these tall, slim ways of storage, you can either have them with a door, again, that could be mirrored. So it's dual function. Or you can have open storage if you want to store stuff quite neatly in there. So it's dual function. Or you can have open storage if you want to store stuff quite neatly in there, but again the closed storage will hide that visual clutter for you, making the space seem more uncluttered and also a bit more spacious.

Speaker 1: 7:09

And then another trick I love in the bathroom is to use over the door storage. So if you want to put a shelf over the door, if you've got space for that, you visually won't see it as you're walking into the room, but it will give an opportunity to store those things you don't need so often. Maybe you know extra toilet rolls or towels you're not using that regularly or any kind of bulk buy items. You can put that above the door on a shelf or in a box shelf and that will just keep things away off of the floor, off of the countertops, just for that more unclustered feel in such a small room. And then of course, you can use the vertical space as well for things like hooks, little shelves, hanging organizers, those types of things. You can find really lovely designs now where they're not kind of the old-fashioned kind of wire rack look anymore. You can find some really lovely designs that will fit the style of your bathroom. They're quite modern. Perhaps if that's your style, you can find so many options now. And of course hooks are great, from anything from towels to shower caps to dressing gowns. So hooks are an essential one as well, and you can find really lovely designs.

Speaker 1: 8:19

And then the next design idea is to use large format tiles. So I use this one a lot. In smallish bathrooms you can visually again trick the eye by using large tiles. So not only will they be easier to lay you'll need fewer of them and it will cost you less in labor but they also just give that visual feel of it being bigger because you have fewer grout lines. It's visually less complicated. So in a small bathroom, go for large format tiles. And if you want to mix it up with some smaller tiles let's say you want to make a feature out of a backsplash or the area above the vanity you could always include smaller tiles there and make a feature out of it. But I think overall, if the majority of the tiles in a small bathroom are large format, it will give that visual effect of the room being a little bit larger and more spacious.

Speaker 1: 9:14

And then my next tip here is to integrate the lighting. So, again, if you're doing a big renovation, everything's being ripped out and you're starting again, you can easily integrate the lighting. So this means you can add some really impressive lighting. So, let's say you were building in a niche above your bath or into your shower. You could include an LED light into that niche so you could get a really lovely glow glow. You could get some mood lighting if you just had that LED on. Let's say, if you're having a relaxing bath, that provides really great mood lighting. So if you're integrating your lighting into the space and taking your fixtures so that they are streamlined and flush with the walls and perhaps only having, let's say, you've got two really beautiful wall lights I want to put either side of your mirror, making those the feature of the lighting in the room and everything else is kind of smooth, streamlined, integrated then that also will make your bathroom appear larger.

Speaker 1: 10:14

And then, lastly in this episode, choose space saving fixtures. There is so much on the market now for smaller bathrooms. You can find compact toilets, compact vanities, where they're not a crazy amount smaller than the usual sanitary wear items, but they are a bit smaller and if you're gaining a bit of space on every item you're using in the bathroom, in a small bathroom, that counts for a lot. So even if something is five to 10 centimetres smaller than the standard size, if you're putting all of those items into one small bathroom, it really does make a difference. So have a look out there there, see what's available for you for smaller bathrooms or compact bathrooms. There is a lot out there to choose from. So when you're doing your research, when you're searching online, make sure that you're putting in the words compact, space saving, and you'll be surprised what comes up.

Speaker 1: 11:07

And then, of course, things like doors. Pocket doors are a great one, which I've used in small bathrooms a lot in my designs, because you don't have to have the door opening into the room, which then takes up quite a lot of space. If you consider the swing of a door into a small room, it really can take up a lot of space and affect the layout quite a lot. So I've used pocket doors a lot, where it just slides to the side and it doesn't interfere at all with the internal space and you can maximize the use of the space within that room. And that's it, folks.

Speaker 1: 11:41

That's my last tip on design ideas for compact bathrooms. I hope you found it useful and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Bye for now. For more information on my five pillar process for successful renovation, you can go directly to southplacestudiocom forward slash pillars, where you'll find an introduction to the process which covers each of the pillars and what they cover. We also have a number of other free renovation resources. Go now to southplacestudiocom forward slash freebies. I have created some amazing freebies for you there. There is one on the process, there is one on planning permission, there is one on kitchen design, there is another one on lighting planning. Go and check those out. There's so much free information there to help you with your renovation.