10 Scintillating Ways to Brighten Low-Light Bathrooms
If you have a bathroom where the sun don't shine, see these clever ways to shed some light on the subject
The days of one ‘family bathroom’ when it was all in together, queuing for showers and knocking impatiently, are history. The majority of today’s homes have multiple bathrooms – ensuites, powder rooms, even separate children’s bathrooms are being incorporated into interiors. Retrofitting extra bathrooms can have its problems, as spaces with little or no access to natural light, never intended for the purpose, are being pressed into service – frequently the case with powder rooms. In high-density urban areas, sub-ground level mews-type apartments and converted industrial buildings, people often end up with bathrooms where no bathroom was ever meant to go and frequently lack light.
Carole Tretheway, principal designer at Carole Tretheway Design, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, explains, “Often clients want to add a bathroom, ensuite or powder room when their family grows or because they entertain a lot. Ideally, a bathroom has access to an external wall or ceiling – with renovations of older-style houses, we don’t always have that to work with. Adding a storey or extension sometimes takes natural light away from existing areas.”
There are many ways to relieve the claustrophobic feel of a poorly lit room, says Tretheway. One is to attract and magnify light from as many sources as possible. Another is to create a buoyant and pleasant mood to dispel the gloom, with colours and other visual distractions. Reflect on her brilliant ideas for brightening up your low-light bathroom.
Carole Tretheway, principal designer at Carole Tretheway Design, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, explains, “Often clients want to add a bathroom, ensuite or powder room when their family grows or because they entertain a lot. Ideally, a bathroom has access to an external wall or ceiling – with renovations of older-style houses, we don’t always have that to work with. Adding a storey or extension sometimes takes natural light away from existing areas.”
There are many ways to relieve the claustrophobic feel of a poorly lit room, says Tretheway. One is to attract and magnify light from as many sources as possible. Another is to create a buoyant and pleasant mood to dispel the gloom, with colours and other visual distractions. Reflect on her brilliant ideas for brightening up your low-light bathroom.
2. Make walls work for you
In the room itself, the name of the game is ‘reflection’. Take every avenue for multiplying what light is in the space. Use the walls as light reflectors.
Wallpapers have hit interior design in a big way and metallics are really big. Quality modern wallpapers have staying power in humid bathroom conditions. Splurge on the most gorgeous one you can afford – it’s only a small area – and do have it professionally hung, advises Tretheway.
In the room itself, the name of the game is ‘reflection’. Take every avenue for multiplying what light is in the space. Use the walls as light reflectors.
Wallpapers have hit interior design in a big way and metallics are really big. Quality modern wallpapers have staying power in humid bathroom conditions. Splurge on the most gorgeous one you can afford – it’s only a small area – and do have it professionally hung, advises Tretheway.
Powder rooms are often dark little afterthoughts. Give a guest loo glamour galore with gold walls and a drop-dead diamante pendant earring. In a narrow room with a short distance between facing walls, the reflective effect is magnified. Ceilings join the party if painted high gloss or wallpapered to match.
Metallic paint is an alternative to wallpaper. There is a huge range of lovely textural metallic paints available. They are a great option for powder rooms rather than steamy wet areas that need frequent wiping.
The Pros Break it Down: How to Plan a Wet Room
Metallic paint is an alternative to wallpaper. There is a huge range of lovely textural metallic paints available. They are a great option for powder rooms rather than steamy wet areas that need frequent wiping.
The Pros Break it Down: How to Plan a Wet Room
3. Divide spaces with translucent material
Privacy issues often dictate the layout of bathrooms and internal screens ensure personal space for multiple users. Solid walls, even in spacious bathrooms, block off light sources and emphasise a sense of enclosure. Tretheway suggests some alternatives:
Explore the range of textured glass. This elegant waterfall pattern would be easy to keep looking sparkling clean and allows light through.
Privacy issues often dictate the layout of bathrooms and internal screens ensure personal space for multiple users. Solid walls, even in spacious bathrooms, block off light sources and emphasise a sense of enclosure. Tretheway suggests some alternatives:
Explore the range of textured glass. This elegant waterfall pattern would be easy to keep looking sparkling clean and allows light through.
“Instead of fully frosted glass, a frosted panel across the centre third only would give light and semi-privacy at the same time,” says Tretheway. “Glass etched in a design that leaves about 50 percent of the glass clear still maintains privacy.”
Glass bricks, vertical blade screens or metal mesh curtains are alternatives for internal dividers.
Glass bricks, vertical blade screens or metal mesh curtains are alternatives for internal dividers.
If privacy is not paramount, a sleek angular clear glass screen gives uninterrupted visual flow to direct light into the rest of the room.
What about going screenless? When you have heaps of space to work with, a ‘wet room’ takes the decision about a shower screen out of contention and gives free flow to available light. It is crucial to plan the fall of the floor surface in an unscreened shower – it’s difficult and costly to adjust later, says Tretheway.
Bathroom: Winner 2008 HIA Best Bathroom Design by Bubbles Bathrooms
What about going screenless? When you have heaps of space to work with, a ‘wet room’ takes the decision about a shower screen out of contention and gives free flow to available light. It is crucial to plan the fall of the floor surface in an unscreened shower – it’s difficult and costly to adjust later, says Tretheway.
Bathroom: Winner 2008 HIA Best Bathroom Design by Bubbles Bathrooms
4. Accessorise with a light touch
Even small items like basins and taps add to overall reflectiveness, like this glass basin and highly polished chrome tapware.
Even small items like basins and taps add to overall reflectiveness, like this glass basin and highly polished chrome tapware.
Do you love this sweet little nook like I do? Turquoise and gold peacock feathers, a simple glass basin, fabulous mirror, cut glass and bronze taps and planter – just delightful.
Matthew Williamson beaded wallpaper in ‘Peacock’ (W6541-02): Osborne & Little
Matthew Williamson beaded wallpaper in ‘Peacock’ (W6541-02): Osborne & Little
Subtle reflections from tapware, sconces, vanity, basin and a mirror-on-mirror detail add shimmer and shine. Even the artwork suggests diamonds.
As design movements like industrial and steampunk gathered momentum, metals made waves in bath design. Stainless steel, polished aluminium, brass and copper baths are putting a sheen on bathtime.
Hell to clean, but, as Cecil Beaton said, “be daring, be different, be impractical”.
Hell to clean, but, as Cecil Beaton said, “be daring, be different, be impractical”.
This glass bath attracted much interest on Houzz, prompting one Houzzer to comment, “Neato, I would look good in this thang!” As well as being incredibly sexy, it is another way of avoiding solid light-absorbing surfaces.
You might need some tips on how to clean the glass in your home.
You might need some tips on how to clean the glass in your home.
5. Steal light from adjacent rooms
Semi-solid walls are one of the most effective ways to open an internal bathroom to more light. Maintain privacy and direct natural light from the bedroom into an ensuite with a half-louvred wall, a vertical opening louvre screen, or a half-glass, half-timber wall.
Excellent Ideas for Your Ensuite’s Entry
Semi-solid walls are one of the most effective ways to open an internal bathroom to more light. Maintain privacy and direct natural light from the bedroom into an ensuite with a half-louvred wall, a vertical opening louvre screen, or a half-glass, half-timber wall.
Excellent Ideas for Your Ensuite’s Entry
If you hate cleaning glass, this bamboo partition is an out-of-the-ordinary way to partly close off an ensuite, while still allowing bedroom light in. I can see some natural bamboo growing here too – some bamboos can take a low light habitat.
How to Design a Self-Cleaning Bathroom (Well, Almost!)
How to Design a Self-Cleaning Bathroom (Well, Almost!)
This picture gave me an idea: a wall in frosted or partially frosted glass between an ensuite and a bedroom with heaps of light and space would allow a diffused view of a strip of indoor garden on the bedroom side, or some large planter pots.
The Great Divide: Structures, Screens and Panels to Split Large Spaces
The Great Divide: Structures, Screens and Panels to Split Large Spaces
Memories of glass bricks, popular in the 1980s, fill some people with horror, but modern versions have sleeker profiles and designs and can look fantastic in contemporary bathrooms. Here, floor-to-ceiling bricks on a curved wall are used to separate a bathroom from adjacent areas, ensuring privacy and a light and airy feel.
If you and your partner share absolutely everything, you won’t mind a plate-glass viewing wall between bedroom and ensuite. Light from the bedroom enters the bathroom unimpeded and sky panels illuminate it further.
Have you heard of the switchable privacy screen? It’s a glass screen containing polymer crystals that becomes opaque at the flick of a switch – sometimes known as ‘electric glass’. What a great invention, and just made for low-light bathrooms where privacy is sometimes but not always required.
Have you heard of the switchable privacy screen? It’s a glass screen containing polymer crystals that becomes opaque at the flick of a switch – sometimes known as ‘electric glass’. What a great invention, and just made for low-light bathrooms where privacy is sometimes but not always required.
6. Do it with mirrors
Although you don’t want to feel as if you are in the Hall of Mirrors at Luna Park, mirrors are your best friend in a low-light room. They take one light source and turn it into two or more. The bigger they are, the more light will ricochet off them. Here, a wall-to-ceiling mirror boosts not only light, but makes this streamlined bathroom look doubly spacious.
Although you don’t want to feel as if you are in the Hall of Mirrors at Luna Park, mirrors are your best friend in a low-light room. They take one light source and turn it into two or more. The bigger they are, the more light will ricochet off them. Here, a wall-to-ceiling mirror boosts not only light, but makes this streamlined bathroom look doubly spacious.
Tretheway recommends one or two large mirrors or a frameless mirrored wall above the vanity, rather than a collection of smaller ones.
Bathroom: Divine Bathroom Kitchen Laundry
Bathroom: Divine Bathroom Kitchen Laundry
7. Plan lighting for maximum efficiency
Even when natural light is maximised by skylights and surface treatments, sometimes daytime electricity is the only answer. Poor lighting can neutralise all those fantastic design decisions you made, so go for professional advice.
Tretheway’s advice is to avoid spot lighting, which will make other areas look darker. “You can achieve even lighting with overlapping light sources,” she says. Concealed lighting under floating vanities casts a soft flood of light across the floor.
Placing lamps in front of mirrors increases overall light and a feature central pendant diffuses it over the area. Tretheway is also a fan of backlighting for vanity mirrors.
Even when natural light is maximised by skylights and surface treatments, sometimes daytime electricity is the only answer. Poor lighting can neutralise all those fantastic design decisions you made, so go for professional advice.
Tretheway’s advice is to avoid spot lighting, which will make other areas look darker. “You can achieve even lighting with overlapping light sources,” she says. Concealed lighting under floating vanities casts a soft flood of light across the floor.
Placing lamps in front of mirrors increases overall light and a feature central pendant diffuses it over the area. Tretheway is also a fan of backlighting for vanity mirrors.
Fancy the chateaux look? Chandeliers are a fantastic option for low-light bathrooms as all those pretty crystals refract light in every direction. Reflecting them in a large mirror doubles their sparkle.
Tip: Dust chandeliers regularly with a feather duster and ‘dry clean’ once a year – wearing a pair of soft cotton gloves sprayed with a small amount of glass cleaner, gently rub each crystal. Place a blanket underneath to prevent breakage of any dropped crystals.
Tip: Dust chandeliers regularly with a feather duster and ‘dry clean’ once a year – wearing a pair of soft cotton gloves sprayed with a small amount of glass cleaner, gently rub each crystal. Place a blanket underneath to prevent breakage of any dropped crystals.
8. Distract, distract, distract
Tretheway says it’s important to shift focus away from the lack of light in the space. This can be done with colour, artwork (such as a trompe l’oeil wall), lighting and accessories.
Would you miss a window if you had a pretty feminine French Provincial bathroom like this?
Tretheway says it’s important to shift focus away from the lack of light in the space. This can be done with colour, artwork (such as a trompe l’oeil wall), lighting and accessories.
Would you miss a window if you had a pretty feminine French Provincial bathroom like this?
Keep the mood light-hearted with cheerful graphics of trees, birds, flowers, leaves, skies or clouds. A tiny powder room with chirpy bird wallpaper won’t seem closed-in as the nature motifs evoke trees and birdsong.
What about a faux window? Tretheway suggests that a backlit framed and frosted window pane ‘floated’ off the wall with subtle backlighting is something you might consider for hinting at the outside world.
Schumacher wallpaper in ‘A-Twitter’: The Elephant Room
What about a faux window? Tretheway suggests that a backlit framed and frosted window pane ‘floated’ off the wall with subtle backlighting is something you might consider for hinting at the outside world.
Schumacher wallpaper in ‘A-Twitter’: The Elephant Room
Gracefully twining foliage on metallic wallpaper gives a real lift to this powder room. Wainscoting panels in high-gloss paint and wallpaper to the ceiling elegantly expands the room by drawing the eye upwards.
Samsara wallpaper in ‘Tamaki’ (French Grey): Romo
Samsara wallpaper in ‘Tamaki’ (French Grey): Romo
Glossy white subway tiles, minimal fixtures and bold wallpaper lift the gloom in this tiny niche.
Green is a beautiful and effective way to create calming, fresh ambience in an enclosed bathroom.
Nature always puts a smile on a dull space. Surprisingly, there are several plants that will thrive in poor lighting. Those whose natural habitat is shady forest floors don’t mind low light. One of these is the glorious Phalaenopsis orchid, with its dark, glossy leaves and graceful drooping habit. Put it in a wide pot with soil and mulch and don’t overwater.
Lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) tolerates very low light and can be grown in water. Other low-light-tolerant plants are begonias, cast iron plant, crotons and Boston fern. Succulents in bathrooms are doomed to a slow death.
Tip: Have ‘Plants Day Out’ once a week – give them a day in natural light in another room.
Lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) tolerates very low light and can be grown in water. Other low-light-tolerant plants are begonias, cast iron plant, crotons and Boston fern. Succulents in bathrooms are doomed to a slow death.
Tip: Have ‘Plants Day Out’ once a week – give them a day in natural light in another room.
9. Keep it clean
It’s almost superfluous to say that an internal bathroom must be kept spanking clean and fragrant. Musty odours only increase the cave-like impression. Give these rooms a little more cleaning attention than other bathrooms; remove damp towels promptly, dry shower screens and basins after use and minimise clutter. Spray regularly with an uplifting scent that you love.
Tip: I can’t wait to try this: hang a bundle of eucalyptus fronds in your shower, not directly in the water spray. Steam activates essential oils in the leaves and leaves a sinus-clearing scent behind. I’d put fresh rosemary stalks in there too. Change every week or so.
Designer Princess Chandelier: Designer Chandelier Australia Pty Ltd
It’s almost superfluous to say that an internal bathroom must be kept spanking clean and fragrant. Musty odours only increase the cave-like impression. Give these rooms a little more cleaning attention than other bathrooms; remove damp towels promptly, dry shower screens and basins after use and minimise clutter. Spray regularly with an uplifting scent that you love.
Tip: I can’t wait to try this: hang a bundle of eucalyptus fronds in your shower, not directly in the water spray. Steam activates essential oils in the leaves and leaves a sinus-clearing scent behind. I’d put fresh rosemary stalks in there too. Change every week or so.
Designer Princess Chandelier: Designer Chandelier Australia Pty Ltd
10. Revel in the grotto effect
You could always just embrace the cloistered feel and highlight the low light, with dark walls and moody indirect lighting. Wouldn’t you love to spend pamper time in this deliciously private Japanese-style cavern? Note that bamboo seems to be thriving in this subdued environment.
You could always just embrace the cloistered feel and highlight the low light, with dark walls and moody indirect lighting. Wouldn’t you love to spend pamper time in this deliciously private Japanese-style cavern? Note that bamboo seems to be thriving in this subdued environment.
Tell us
How have you made a bathroom space feel better? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story and join the conversation.
More
Is your bathroom screaming out for an update? Find a bathroom designer or renovator near you who can tailor a design and lighting plan to your space
How have you made a bathroom space feel better? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story and join the conversation.
More
Is your bathroom screaming out for an update? Find a bathroom designer or renovator near you who can tailor a design and lighting plan to your space
The most obvious way to light up an internal bathroom is by introducing daylight through skylighting. This is a relatively simple job when there is direct roof access, but on a ground floor with another level above, there are still ways to duct daylight to where it is needed. Check out Sunportal, an advanced light-ducting system for deep-plan building spaces. Illuminated coffered ceilings are a superb – but very expensive – way to ensure all-day light.
Light from these sky panels over the shower area bounce lustre from metallic mosaic tiles into the rest of the room.
Famosa tiles: Bettertiles
Sensational Skylights: Light Up Your Home Life