How Do I Modernise My Small Bathroom?

A bathroom facelift can transform your whole home. Modernising small bathrooms is particularly challenging but ever so worth the effort.

Gone are the days when bathrooms were purely functional. Today, en-suite bathrooms have become an essential retreat for tired parents and second bathrooms often need to cater for busy teenagers. Fear not, help to modernise your small bathrooms is closer and easier than you think. 

Updating small spaces can be finicky and costly, but one of the most stunning and successful ways to vastly improve small bathrooms is to use glass and mirrors effectively. Let’s investigate some ideas that have already proven to be effective.

The Fixed Shower Panel

There’s no getting away from it, frameless glass in a bathroom is singularly transformative. If your small space has a shower squeezed into a corner with either swing or sliding doors, it’s time to make a change! A frameless fixed panel in the right spot can negate the need for a shower door completely. How’s that for modernising small bathrooms?

That is good news, just think of it. You can have the shower handle moved in such a way that you don’t need to get wet turning it on while you wait for the water to warm up, for starters. But the real beauty is one simple frameless glass panel that creates a rewarding optical illusion of openness and space.

The beauty of glass panels, as opposed to the old shower curtain idea, is already a huge step toward modernization. Many toilets are squeezed in next to the bath for example. All you need to do there is install a frameless glass panel from the top of the bath to the ceiling and shower water doesn’t splash onto the toilet and you’ll feel way less cramped.

Letting in Light 

No doubt your small bathroom could do with more light. It might be that the toilet is behind either a full wall or a half wall, it will, without doubt, cramp what little space there is for you to work with. Consider removing such walled dividers and installing a frameless glass cubicle instead.

Opening spaces using glass panelling will create a fresh, light modern look and effectively double the size of small bathrooms. If you can, consider using large glass panes on an outer wall and building in a walled private garden. Overlooking a private garden from the confines of a small bathroom will both modernise and open it up with very little expense. The ‘wall’ of the garden can be constructed from hedging, or even from wooden poles. But what a difference it makes to the light inside the bathroom.

Adding ceiling lighting has the effect of adding height to it and so does painting it with a gloss paint because it then reflects available light off its surface area.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall 

Strategic use of glass mirrors can create a feeling of space and light. Consider tiling a whole wall in mirror tiling. Consider mirror tiling the entire back shower wall. 

With frameless glass installation for the shower, you can imagine how well light can be reflected around the smallest of rooms.

Mirrors above the vanity basin can be made as tall as possible to create the feeling of lots of height. Using mirrors on the side of a built-in bathtub will add visual space as it would against the back wall of open shelving.

A Clever Vanity Manoeuvre 

If you get clever about how to use frameless glass to modernise small bathrooms, you don’t have to skimp on size when it comes to the vanity basin area. In fact, with the light and space you’d have created, the bigger the vanity, the better. It works opposite to what you imagine and creates the illusion of space rather than cramping it up.

The bigger the vanity basins and the cupboards and drawers that go along with it, the less clutter you’ll have on the floor. Linen bins can be incorporated into vanity slabs as well as storage for toiletries, towels, and sundries.

Clear Glass Shelves

A smart way to modernize small bathrooms is to declutter what you have in the cupboards and on the shelves. The easiest way to transform this aspect is to visualize that your products, makeup, shaving gear, etc, are on display in a cosmetic store.

Glass shelves can be fitted to frameless glass panels of course and you can create a certain amount of privacy by having pretty products and nicely placed equipment on glass panelling without losing the light, space, and openness you achieved by installing it, to begin with.

Glass shelving can be used for open storage for attractive towels and toiletries.

In short, you will be able to create virtually ‘invisible’ walls in any small bathroom to modernize it and open it up. Light can be bounced off the ceiling and off strategically placed mirrors. Lastly, with all the space you’ll have created, remember to add a touch of nature. 

If you can’t achieve the private garden plan, include green indoor plants, which will thrive with the light you brought in when you undertook the exciting task of modernising your small bathrooms. All that’s left is to say, ‘congratulations’ and wait for rave reviews from your family and visitors who will see how something as simple as frameless glass transformed and updated your little bathroom.

Contact us at GHI Architectural Solutions for helpful tips and applications for frameless glass panelling, silhouette glass solutions, and more. Visit our website gallery for inspiration.