Adding colour to your bathroom (while on a budget)

Do you ever stand in your bathroom and think it feels a bit…flat? You’re not alone. So many of us play it safe in the bathroom, defaulting to white tiles, a white suite and white towels but this can just make it feel clinical and like you’re at the dentist instead of a relaxing bathroom.

If you want to bring personality and colour back to your bathroom, I have good news. It’s usually a cheap and easy job that doesn’t involve ripping everything out and starting again. Instead, it’s about a handful of small changes that make a room feel warmer and brighter.

So here’s how I’d go about it, starting with the bits that cost almost nothing and working up from there.

 

First, why does colour feel so scary in the bathroom?

If you’re worried about introducing colour into the bathroom, you aren’t alone. For some reason, it’s the room that people find the most tricky to colour-ify, and perhaps its because of past PTSD. We’ve all seen the avocado suites of the 70s and the dusky pinks of the 80s held up as cautionary tales, and nobody wants to make a choice now that they’ll hate in ten years’ time.

But there’s a difference between the expensive, hard-to-change parts of a bathroom and the cheap, easy-to-swap parts. You can absolutely keep the bath, the sink and the floor tiles the same and instead go bold with everything else, because ‘everything else’ can be changed quickly and at a low cost.

Now, onto the ideas.

 

1. Start with the textiles and the easy wins

Before you spend money on anything that needs fitting to a wall, look at everything in the room that can be lifted out and replaced. This could be towels, the bath mat, a soap dispenser, a tumbler for toothbrushes, a little trailing plant on the windowsill, a framed print on the wall. These are the cheapest things in the room and adding colour here will make quite a big difference.

A stack of mustard or ochre towels against a white wall does more for a tired bathroom than you’d ever believe, and if you change your mind next month, you’ve lost the price of some towels rather than the price of a renovation.

This is also exactly where to put your energy if you rent.

 

2. Pick a palette and actually stick to it

The one mistake I see again and again is people buying lovely individual things in five different colours and wondering why the room looks busy rather than considered. You should choose one or two colours to build around, and repeat them in small doses around the room. Maybe that’s a soft sage and a touch of brass, or a sunny yellow with warm wood.

Repetition is the trick that makes a cheap scheme feel deliberate rather than accidental. If you’re working with a really compact space, my small bathroom decoration ideas go into this in a bit more detail.

 

3. Swap out your toilet seat

It’s so simple, but soooo good. The toilet seat is an ordinary, functional object that probably doesn’t get noticed that often, but a cracked, yellowing, or tired seat really drags the whole room down. And because it’s the last thing on anyone’s list, it often ends up being the oldest, grubbiest item in an otherwise nice bathroom.

Replacing it is one of the cheapest jobs going. Most seats fit standard fixings, so it’s usually a five-minute job with no plumber required, and it’s a brilliant little opportunity to bring in some colour rather than reaching for plain white out of habit.

A cheerful yellow toilet seat can genuinely lift a small or north-facing bathroom that doesn’t get much natural light, and it pairs really nicely with grey tiles, white walls, or a bit of warm timber.

How to fit one yourself (and measure first)

Before you buy a new toilet seat, measure up. You need to know the distance between the fixing holes, the width at the widest point, and the length from the holes to the front edge. Seats come in different shapes (D-shaped, oval, square, and fully rounded) so it’s worth checking yours rather than assuming.

Once you’ve got the right one, fitting is usually just a case of removing the old fixings, dropping the new seat into place, and tightening it up by hand.

 

4. Paint the walls a fun colour

If you want a bolder change without the cost of retiling, a tin of paint is your best friend. But please, please, use proper bathroom paint rather than standard emulsion. Bathroom paint is formulated to cope with steam and moisture, so it will prevent peeling and black mould a few months down the line.

A single accent wall in a deep blue, a soft terracotta, or a sunny ochre can completely reframe a room, and it’s the sort of project you can start and finish over a weekend.

 

If your tastes change, you repaint it in a day. You can even paint dated wall tiles using the right tile primer and tile paint. It’s a bit of a faff and you need to prep properly, but it’s a fraction of the cost of replacing them and it can buy you years before a bigger renovation. If a full reset is actually on the cards, my guide on designing a contemporary bathroom from scratch is a better starting point.

I absolutely love the use of colour in this bathroom. The wallpaper is a stunning feature and goes beautifully with the blue panelling around the sink. The best part is you can easily repaint the blue once you get bored, or simply re-wallpaper, keeping the rest of the bathroom the same.

 

5. Add some colourful accessories

Once you’ve settled on your one or two colours, a few coordinating touches tie everything together. The clever move is to choose pieces that are both useful and on-palette, so they’re pulling double duty rather than just adding clutter.

This might include a roller blind or a pretty window film, a laundry basket, a set of storage jars, hooks rather than heavy fixings, or even the frame around your mirror. A good mirror can transform how big and bright a small bathroom feels. Just keep coming back to your palette and resist the urge to introduce a brand-new shade with every purchase.

 

6. And some greenery

Plants can have a surprising impact on how a room looks, and your bathroom is the ideal place for plants like ground ferns, pothos, spider plants, boston ferns and more (basically any plant that enjoys a damp environment).

A bit of green breaks up all the hard surfaces and makes the space feel cared for, and a single trailing plant on a shelf costs less than a fiver.

 

7. Consider the little details that pull it all together

It’s the small finishing touches that make a budget update. Swap out a harsh, white bulb for a warmer one, replace mismatched, builder-grade handles on a vanity unit with something that picks up your accent colour or metal finish, add a runner or a tactile bath mat underfoot so the room feels nice to stand in, not just nice to look at.

None of these things are that dramatic individually, but together they can make a big difference.

I love the coloured light that have been added to the niche in this shower, completely transforming how it looks!

 

My biggest top tip?

Keep the expensive stuff neutral and add colour to everything else.

The bathroom is usually one of the smallest rooms in the house, which actually makes it the perfect place to be brave with colour. The square footage is tiny, so the cost of experimenting is low, and a shade that might feel overwhelming across a whole living room can be exactly the right amount of cheerful in a compact bathroom.

So keep the most expensive things neutral (and the things that are hardest to change) while adding colour to the things that are cheaper and easier to swap, like paint, textiles, accessories.