How To Spruce Up Your Bathroom

I’m so excited to share a glimpse of our guest room bathroom with y’all today! When we bought our house, the bathroom in our guest room had good bones but absolutely nothing about the design or the flow of the space was very us. It is a small room so we really wanted to maximize the bathroom space and were adamant about restructuring the layout of the room so the toilet wasn’t in the middle of everything (see the before photos below at the bottom of this post). We worked with our designer, Olivia Brock of Torrance Mitchell Designs, to create our perfect guest bathroom! She was the mastermind behind the restructuring of the room and the design of the little bathroom oasis. To say that Edwin and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Olivia would be an understatement! Sharing this room makes me so excited to show y’all everything else Olivia has designed for us and helped us create!

Since it isn’t our bathroom, we knew we didn’t need a ton of storage space so a big cabinet/sink/vanity area wasn’t necessary. This freed up a lot of space in the bathroom. We also changed the tile, lighting, and room color. These changes had a HUGE impact on the room and allowed us to transform the dated bathroom into a tranquil space that we now love! With the addition of special touches like beautiful monogrammed Weezie Towels, the room really came to life! Keep reading for my ideas on how to spruce up your bathroom.

How To Spruce Up Your Bathroom

Refresh Your Towels

This is one of the easiest ways to spruce up a bathroom! There is nothing more luxurious feeling than fresh towels. Towels beautify a space instantly and add a personal touch to a room when they are monogrammed. Our process of selecting towels was easy because I already had my heart set on Weezie Towels and then my lovely friends over there reach out to work together.

Weezie Towels are a must because they are soft and fluffy while also actually being absorbent (there is nothing worse than rough towels or towels that don’t truly dry you off!). Weezie Towels are also OEKO-TEX certified, which means that the towels have never been treated with harmful chemicals like pesticides and lead. It seems obvious but many brands in the textile industry don’t uphold this standard! Lastly, they are easy on the eyes. Weezie Towels have two different piping options, a wealth of piping and monogram colors to choose from, and more than a handful of different monogram options.

I don’t say this lightly, Weezie Towels are truly one of a kind in the textile industry and a beloved product in our household! I’m excited for the bath mats that Weezie has coming this year! If you have littles at home, then also stay tuned for their children’s collection also launching this year!

Use Affordable Tile Options

In terms of bathroom tiles, the most budget friendly way to spruce up an old bathroom is to clean existing tiles. Chances are that if the house has seen better days, then a bathroom will instantly look newer if you give the existing tiles and grout a good clean. Otherwise, a budget bathroom can be accomplished by making cost-effective choices when it comes to tile (floor tiles, shower tiles, tile backsplashes etc.). You can’t really see it in these images but our shower/tub is done with all subway tile, which is a great affordable option (I’ll share a photo when we stain our tub)!

Another way to dress up a bathroom with tile that doesn’t break the bank is to use peel and stick backsplash if your space calls for a backsplash. As you can see, ours didn’t but I do think this is a great look that appears elevated but allows you to save money. For anyone who lives in Charleston and is curious, we used Tile & Stone Design Studio for our tile work.

Repaint

It goes without saying that repainting a bathroom can completely change the mood, feel, and look of the space. In our case, our guest bathroom was previously tiled on the walls. We removed the tile and painted the room a tranquil green color. For the green color, we selected Benjamin Moore ‘Colony Green’ and are absolutely over the moon about our choice! I think the green adds a lot of personality to the room while creating a very peaceful atmosphere. For us, when thinking about “how to spruce up your bathroom,” paint was our #1!

Use Coordinating Accessories

I hate a bathroom that feels cluttered so I highly recommend using coordinating accessories. It creates a clean, streamlined, tidy look. I suggest shopping for bath sets that include things like matching soap dishes, soap dispensers, tissue boxes, nesting trays, waste bins, etc. I have a couple of suggestions for where to look including Serena & Lily (the Bar Harbor set is beautiful!), Annie Selke (I love the Cordoba White Burlap set!), Labrazel for luxury sets, Anthropologie for unique sets, Neiman Marcus for a versatile selection of sets, and Target for a smart budget bathroom choice.

Select a Pretty Shower Curtain

A shower curtain is a great finishing touch that pulls together a bathroom. I actually searched high and low for a shower curtain that had a touch of green on it, like a green trim or accent stripe but had no luck. I’m going to keep my eyes open and maybe explore custom shower curtains but in the meantime, I love the fresh white waffle weave shower curtain I selected. It effortlessly blends in and lets the walls and accents like our towels stand out at the focal points of the room. However, shower curtains can just as easily be the focal point of a bathroom if you choose a beautiful patterned one! When shopping for shower curtains, I suggest looking at Serena & Lily, Matouk, Annie Selke, John Robshaw, Anthropologie, Emily Daws Textiles, Pottery Barn, and Target.

Bathroom Decorating Essentials

Wall Art

We are planning to hang a piece of art above the towel rack in our bathroom. We have a beautifully framed piece of blue coral that we love (as seen in these photos) but we’re trying to decide if it blends away into the wall too much. It stands out a bit more in person than in these photos but it really pops against a white wall. Either way, I love the idea of keeping with the relaxed vibe of the green walls and would love to hang either a coastal piece to pull in the seafoam aspect of the green, or a botanical print to pull in the natural tone of the green, or do something a bit more funky like a CRC Matchbook print. P.S. a few great online sources for art are Well + Wonder, Artist Collective, Serena & Lily, and One Kings Lane.

Bath Storage

In small bathrooms, bath storage can be important. We haven’t quite gotten here yet as this bathroom is our guest bathroom so it’s not as necessary. However, there are some great options out there that work and fit under pedestal sinks like ours. I love how natural and serene the Serena & Lily options are. If you have medicine cabinets and/or drawers in your bathrooms, then you can disregard this next point. If not, then I recommend a few ideas including unique bathroom shelving and pretty + functional bathroom vanities.

Mirrors

Mirrors pull a whole bathroom together! We opted for a wall mounted mirror in natural rattan above the bathroom sink and love the scale of it. Mirrors work wonders to make a small space like a bathroom open up and appear bigger. Shop for bathroom mirrors here, here, and here. I really love this rattan mirror and this rope mirror.

Versatile Accent Chairs & Stools

If you want to up the interior design factor of your bathroom, then I love adding in accent chairs and/or stools that look great while also being functional. A rattan chair with an upholster cushion would look fantastic in a bathroom if the space allowed for it. I also love having a little stool in a bathroom. This is especially handy if you have young children who take baths as it gives you somewhere to sit. Shop one of these three stools: teak, dip-dyed, and rattan.

Indoor Plants or Flowers

Nothing breathes life into a room than a little nature. I’m no indoor plant expert so I tend to gravitate toward fresh flowers. If your bathroom space is big enough though, I think fiddle leaf trees look fantastic in bathrooms. When guests come to stay, filling a small bud vase with fresh flowers is a must for me in our guest bath. Well done faux flowers can also be a great option.

Decorative Catchall Trays

Decorative catchall trays look beautiful on bathroom countertops and vanities. They looks great styled with beauty items like perfume on them. This is a simple but effective tip for how to spruce up your bathroom.

Candles

Candles set the mood in bathrooms and keep bathrooms smelling fresh. There are a million places to shop for candles but I always love the candles at Candlefish.

Bathroom Remodeling Ideas

Guest Bathroom Before & After

Here are two before photos of our guest room bathroom and our master bathroom. As you can see, they were nearly identical. In our renovation process, we ended up extending our master bathroom to add square footage (stay tuned!) and we used a lot of the bathroom remodeling ideas I mentioned above to transform both bathrooms. In the guest bathroom, we kept the existing square footage and kept the original tub. Otherwise, we gave it a major refresh!

I hope you found this post on how to spruce up your bathroom helpful! Bathrooms are one of the best home improvement projects to take on for your living sake and for resell value. I will slowly be rolling out home posts but I hope you like what you’ve seen so far and I hope this post gave you some bathroom ideas! We honestly, have a lot of work to go still on our house so I’ll be doing my best to share in a timely manner. Thanks for reading! We owe so much to our creative designer, Olivia Brock! Her inspired ideas have allowed us to create a home we’ve always dreamed of! P.S. The few photos in this post shot against white bead board walls aren’t in our guest bathroom. xx

Photography by Edwin Eversole