Small, But Not an Afterthought
This may be one of the smallest rooms in our house, but it might also be the hardest working. It’s the bathroom everyone uses—friends stopping by, family gathered for dinner, and overnight guests alike—so we wanted it to feel welcoming without sacrificing function.
Like most rooms in our home, it came together piece by piece. New finds live alongside things that have been with us for years, including the little wooden washstand that belonged to my grandmother. For years, it held a bowl and pitcher. Today it has a different job, but I love that it still has a place in our home.
A Faucet That Gave Us More Room
This bathroom is narrow, and every inch between the vanity, toilet and shower matters. A standard vanity with the faucet mounted behind the sink would have taken up valuable depth, so we chose a very narrow vanity and mounted the faucet directly through the wall instead. It gave us the function we needed without crowding an already small room.
Making the Walls Work
In a room this small, even a little extra storage helps. The floating shelves use otherwise empty wall space and give us somewhere for the practical things—and a few extras that make the room feel finished—without taking up any floor space.
A Towel Rack Without Giving Up Space
The standing towel rack gives us another place for hand towels without using wall space or taking up much of the counter. It's a small addition, but in a bathroom where every inch counts, those little solutions matter.
A Little Balance in All Those Straight Lines
The vanity, shower and room itself are all fairly rectangular, so I liked bringing in some softer shapes. The round mirror and cone-shaped lights break up all those straight lines, while the matching black finishes tie them back to the faucet and other hardware throughout the room.
Warmth From an Unexpected Place
With so much gray, blue, black and white in this room, the wood ceiling brings in the warmth it needed. It also draws your eye up, which doesn't hurt in a bathroom with a pretty small footprint. We kept the wood natural rather than trying to make it match anything else in the room—and I think that's part of why it works.
Keeping a Small Room Open
Because this bathroom is so narrow, we didn't want the shower to visually cut the room in half. The glass doors keep the sightline open and make the room feel larger, while still giving us a full-size shower.
A Shower That Ties It Together
The matte-black shower system carries the same finish into the shower and helps the whole room feel intentional. It's also one of those upgrades where function mattered just as much as how it looked—which is especially important in the bathroom everyone actually uses.
No Excuse for an Empty Roll 😂
This freestanding toilet paper holder gives us a place to keep extra rolls within reach without putting more holes in the wall. And because changing the roll requires approximately three seconds and one functioning arm, there's really no excuse. We liked this solution enough that some version of it appears in three of our four bathrooms.