Baths: Doing More With Less

Making a small master bath look and feel larger

There's no question that master bathrooms are important spaces. As the room where most people start and end their day, the last thing most people want is for that space to feel crowded. In fact, a cramped bath can really turn off prospective buyers. "Small bathrooms are obscenely unpopular," notes Paige Rien, designer for the HGTV show Hidden Potential.

Taking mirrors all the way to the wall makes a small master bath look much larger.

Yet that's what most homeowners have. Master baths in older homes are utilitarian spaces at best. Even in new homes, the floor plans have shrunk to match smaller budgets. That creates a challenge for the builder or remodeler: how to make a bathroom smaller without making clients feel squeezed on comfort and resale value.

Here are six ideas for giving a downsized master bath some visual elbow room.

Keep it light. A bathroom should be filled with light: Nothing makes this space feel cramped like a poor lighting scheme. Light-colored surfaces go a long way toward making a bath seem larger. That's why Charlene Neal, vice president of design for Bradenton, Fla.-based Neal Communities, has chosen white tile as standard in her plans. She adds color with wallpaper, towels and other accents.

Photo Credit: Neal Communities
There's nothing more tried and true than light - in fixtures, windows and paint color - to make a small bathroom appear spacious.

Make use of mirrors. In her book "Not So Big Remodeling," nationally known architect Sarah Susanka writes, "No other room in the house benefits more from the use of reflecting surfaces than the bathroom. If you know how to use mirrors intelligently, you can more than double the apparent size of the room without adding a single square foot of space." To give the illusion of more space, she suggests extending mirrors all the way to the adjoining wall or ceiling, or both.

Go vertical with storage. If you have a long vanity with double sinks, a cabinet tower between the sinks can add a lot of storage without chewing up floor space. "Depending on the height of the ceiling, there's a good opportunity to stack cabinets," says Tampa, Fla.-based kitchen and bath designer Jamie Goldstein. "You could have an appliance garage on the counter for electric appliances like curlers and blow dryers. Above that, you can have closed-door cabinets for medicines and glass-front cabinets for pretty towels and perfumes."

Use separate vanities. Two separate sinks can be a real benefit in a master bath, but that doesn't mean you need to take up the entire wall with cabinetry. His and hers vanities literally open up space in the room, and make it clear whose is whose. "We're able to put two separate vanities even in our smaller master baths," says Neal.

Carve out niches. Whether it's a toilet paper holder recessed into the wall or a built-in shower shelf for holding spa goodies, niches offer an attractive way to add space without using square footage. "I like to design his and hers niches in the shower," says Goldstein.

Employ kitchen storage tricks. Bathroom vanities make notoriously poor use of their storage potential. The result: cluttered tops that make the room seem smaller. Goldstein takes a cue from kitchen cabinets and outfits vanities with roll-out trays or fold-down false front panels. They're a great organizational tool, letting homeowners tuck away items that might clutter the countertop.


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