The bathroom should ideally be designed to promote relaxation and rest. When we’re soaking in the tub, enjoying an invigorating shower, or brushing our teeth, we tend to appreciate surroundings that put us at ease, and support self-care.
When we’re choosing the colours for the bathroom, therefore, we want to favour shades that support these goals. While personal taste will make a big difference, here, the fact is that there are certain colours which we more readily put in the bathroom. Go and explore your nearest bathroom showroom, and you’re almost guaranteed to see them.
Let’s consider a few of the options.
Dark green
Darker green tends to be associated with wealth and luxury. Like all dark colours, it makes a good match with larger spaces, where light can be distributed evenly. You can introduce green into a space not just with the help of paint and tiling, but with the addition of a little greenery. The right houseplants, whether they’re real or fake, will make your design that little bit more biophilic – which can help to promote mental health. Of course, in the moisture-rich environment of a bathroom, there are certain kinds of plant that will cope much better than others.
Soft greys
Grey tends to make a good choice in the bathroom, largely because it’s the colour that many natural stone, or porcelain, tiles, tend to come in. Pebble-tone tiles, and marble-effect ones, are popular choices.
You can usually offset the light grey colours of your tiling with a different shade of grey on the walls. Into this monochrome setting, any bright colours, like yellow towels, will really stand out as visual accents.
Blissful blues
Blue is a colour that just about everyone associates with peace and tranquillity. If you need a space that’s clear and peaceful, then this is the way to bring it about. It’s the colour of ocean waves, and of clear skies. It’s naturally complemented by shades of white, which will help to make the space more elegant.
Romantic mauve
Shades of purple have, since Roman times, been inseparable from the concept of regal power and luxury. Mauve is a particularly good match for a bathroom space. You can put it alongside smoky marble, and accent it with a little bit of gold here and there to really lean into that feeling of opulence and glamour.
While all of the choices we’ve mentioned here are proven effective, there’s no reason that you can’t be a little bit more bold and experimental. Think like an artist, and learn about colour theory. What really matters is that you choose a paint that’s able to stand up to moisture and temperature changes without discolouring or peeling off the walls.
