Bathrooms are, first and foremost, functional spaces. But, that doesn’t mean they can’t be decorative too. The first thing to nail down, before thinking about paint colours and fabrics, is the layout. In terraced houses, the space traditionally used for the bathroom is on a landing, and can be narrow and difficult to navigate. Similarly, in higgledy-piggledy cottages, the bathroom has often been squeezed in wherever possible upstairs (or even downstairs). In such cases, how do you make space for a loo, sink, bath and/or shower as well as vital storage? We’ve delved into the House & Garden archives to find three different approaches that you can easily recreate at home.
The one-wall bathtub
One common solution to the small bathroom is to devote an entire wall to the bath. This is often the shorter wall in a rectangular bathroom, but filling the entire space with the bath is quite satisfying, and leaves the longer wall to be filled with the sink, loo and any storage you can manage to fit in. Built-in baths are nearly always a better option than freestanding in small spaces as the surround serves as a very helpful – and necessary – surface.
The cottage bathroom above, in artist Rachel Bottomley’s Surrey home, follows this rule. The bathtub has been installed along the far wall and neatly boxed in using tongue-and-groove panelling, which continues on the lower half of the walls. It is painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Eating Room Red’ and teamed with ‘Maidenhair’ wallpaper by Living Quarters on the upper walls, for a wonderfully inviting and decorative feel. There is not an inch of floor or wall space that hasn’t been used wisely – from the well-placed chair for your towel or clothes to the wall-hung antique shelving unit and the artwork on the walls for added charm and character. Even the dado rail above the panelling has become a handy ledge for displaying pictures and other bits and bobs.
If space is even more tight, take inspiration from real estate expert Corey Hemingway’s 1960s south London townhouse. Faced with a particularly narrow and constrained space on the top floor, she decided to install a short Japanese-style soaking tub under the window, where a standard-length bath or a shower would not have been possible. She was even resourceful when it came to the mosaic tiles from Winckelmans, using leftovers to form a splashback in the kitchen.
Keep it open
Where space is limited and awkward, it can be helpful to forget about trying to divide up the space too strictly. With a standard shower cubicle, you have to figure out where the doors will go, what they will open onto and how everything else will fit into the equation. However, with a walk-in shower without any doors, you have a lot more freedom and need only dedicate a corner or the very end of the room to the shower area. If you are opting for a wet room set-up, just make sure you have done all the necessary preparation in terms of tanking or waterproofing.
If you’re planning on carving out a corner for a walk-in shower, a curtain is an excellent alternative to a door as it requires no opening space. In this 16th-century cottage bathroom reimagined by Holly Vaughan, a simple rail has been installed to accommodate a traditional shower curtain, which can be easily taken down and washed regularly. The handmade wall and floor tiles keep things practical yet pretty, and bring a lovely feeling of warmth to the space along with panelling painted in ‘Sand Dune’ by Rose Uniacke.
The example above is rather more extreme, but provides a useful template for anyone dealing with the narrowest and smallest of spaces. In a Georgian house in Islington reimagined by artist Christabel MacGreevy and photographer Harry Carr, an en-suite wet-room was carved out from the recess of an adjacent staircase and decorated with marble tiles in contrasting sizes. The niche in the wall is such a good storage solution for tricky bathrooms.
The mirrored wall
One of the best-known solutions for small spaces is a well-placed mirror, which can give the illusion of more space and light than there actually is. It is an approach that is particularly well suited to bathrooms as you will need a mirror anyway, so why not go big and cover whatever wall space you have at your disposal with mirrors?
This is exactly what decorator Cindy Leveson has done in her own flat in London, where the en suite adjoining her main bedroom has mirrors above the basin and the bathtub. The bright and spacious feel is enhanced by pale blue patterned wallpaper – ‘Crochet’ by Christopher Farr – and Dulux’s ‘90BG 36/115’ paint. Using picture-hanging chains to display portraits and illustrations on top of the mirrored walls is a genius finishing touch, and adds to the country house aesthetic that characterises the entire flat.
The mirror also plays a key role in this bathroom of a London townhouse, but here it brings to life a rather richer, Art Deco-esque scheme. Designer James Mackie retained the existing fixtures and fittings, including the black tiling and the mirrored wall behind the basins, which reflects the light and gives the brass hardware a warm glow. He added the gilt-iron 1950s Italian table, sourced from Fiona McDonald, and fringed café curtains in ‘Mistral’ linen voile in bone from George Spencer Designs. Let this be a reminder that, with the right balance of style and practicality, narrow bathrooms can have just as much atmosphere and can feel just as decadent as a larger space.
