Bathrooms often can stymie a home decorator's creativity. After all, how much can you do in a room dominated by tile and plumbing fixtures? Plenty, as it turns out!
The first step is consider the overall home style. For example, if the home is done in a cheerful, sunny Mediterranean style with plastered walls and rounded corners, you'd want to consider using round or oval rugs. However, if you have a Contemporary bathroom with its sharp edges and shiny metal, geometric modern rugs would be more appropriate.
Then, too, there's the function of the bathroom. If the bath is devoted to the family's children, then it definitely needs to reflect a child's tastes, possibly with a cartoon character theme or at least some bright primary colors. On the other hand, if it's the bathroom off the master suite, then it could function as a home spa for relaxation, complete with calming colors, all the way down to blue rugs or green rugs on the floor.
Finally, there's the homeowner's personal style. What colors make the bathroom's users feel best: upbeat yellows and vibrant blues, or pastel or muted neutral shades?
Interior design experts say that there are generally four decorating styles used when choosing accessories for a bathroom: bright, fun, classy or muted.
A classy bathroom could go several ways. For example, a bathroom in a Contemporary home might choose black tile, black fixtures and black granite countertops. To relieve this intense color, black and white geometric shower curtain, along with white towels and wash cloths, soap dish and toothbrush holder, would work best. On the other hand, an equally classy bathroom could be decorated in muted colors, perhaps with a subtle floral pattern to the borders on the towels or on wallpaper. One example would be a combination of beige and rose, with roses as the floral embellishment. It's possible for those skilled in needle arts to crochet rose-patterned edging for towels or even create unique washcloths.
To create a muted look to a bathroom, soft tones also would be necessary, but with much more modern accessories such as those at a spa. Natural colors that look like stone, highlighted by muted shades of blue or green, could combine well in this scheme. This would lead to choosing a matching array of bath rug, towels, and shower curtain to match, along with simple chrome fixtures for sink, tub, shower and toilet. Other accessories also should reflect either chrome or muted colors.
A bright bathroom requires modern shades and shapes, such as single-color shower curtains in vivid shades, along with window treatments, towels and mats to create a crisp look. Geometric patterns such as those found on modern rugs, also fit in well with this decorating alternative. Think in terms of large, bright blocks of color.
A fun bathroom is one that chooses a theme and runs with it - sometimes to excess, unfortunately. Even though creating a playful bathroom often expresses the homeowners' favorites, it's possible to overwhelm even fans with too much. As with all decorating schemes, creating a fun bathroom is decidedly the place to invoke the "less is more" rule. For example, if you choose an ocean or aquatic theme, pick a shower curtain brimming with tropical fish and let that serve as a focal point for the bathroom's decorating scheme. Adding fish-shaped shower hooks can be cute, but that should be the final touch. No fish-shaped rugs on the floor or coral reef wallpaper. Instead, pick up the bright colors of the fish in paint and accessories, but let your finny friends confine themselves to the shower curtain.
While these are the four main styles of bathroom decorating, they aren't they only ones. Whatever inspires the decorator can serve as a bathroom decorating theme, provided it observes the essential principles of unity, harmony and balance.
