24 bathroom decor ideas for your next refresh

Big or small, all white or bursting in color, the bathroom is a great place for experimentation in the home. It’s where tiles can pop, paint can be as decorative as you’d like, and faucets or vanities can take center stage.

In our weekly home tours column, House Calls, homeowners have taken bathroom style cues from 19th-century pharmacies, fashion designers, farmland, and nature. We’re sharing a few of our favorites from across the U.S., including homes in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

If you’re looking for a bathroom refresh this very moment, we’ll give you details on where you can find the paint colors, fixtures, and decor shown in these images or something similar.

Don’t miss other installments of this series highlighting bedroom, dining room, and living room ideas.

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In Seattle, multifamily living done right

“We were drawn to the idea of having a hand in making our own space,” says Best Practice Architecture’s Kailin Gregga of Big Mouth House in Seattle, Washington. She and fellow architect and life partner Steven Lazen worked with Rob Humble, founding partner and design principal for Hybrid Architecture, on their townhouse in the Central District, which was part of a trio of town homes. Their bathroom, as well as several spots around the house, embrace the color pink without holding back. The lightness and freshness of the space is further highlighted by a few accent plants.

Kelly Marshall

A couple remakes a flat in a Greek Revival townhouse

The bathroom in Marco Roth’s and Nina Dudas’s Philadelphia home speaks in soft tones, with pale green-blue walls, bright tiled floors, and natural light. The couple repurposed ceiling joists they removed during the renovation as benches and crossboards in the bathroom. The minimalist nature of the space is in part due to Roth and Dudas wanting the home to evolve over time. “The feeling that I had with designing our home was that not everything has to be perfect, things can be left to time,” Dudas says.

Brett Bulthuis

An Indiana couple builds their eco-friendly dream house on 8.5 acres

In farmland near Muncie, Indiana, Kelsey and Tyler Johnston purchased a lot on which architect David Rausch would ultimately build them a sustainability-driven dream home. Rausch noticed traditional Indiana barns on his first drive to the site, and suggested they take cues from the region’s vernacular architecture. This design direction inspired the monumental sliding window on the south side of the home, and you could also say that reference point showed up throughout the home, like in the downstairs bathroom, which sports a farmhouse-style sink and a vintage mirror. The minimalist faucet and towel hanger add a few modern touches.

An LA designer finds—and remakes—her midcentury dream home

In interior designer Natalie Myers’s Ladera Heights home, there’s one room that continues to delight her: the master bath. Myers had the previously compartmentalized space drastically expanded during a gut renovation, and included a large picture window that will (eventually) look out onto an enclosed patch of green. “The bathroom is now insanely large [because we’ve combined] different enclosed spaces into one, [and swapped] a closet for a large walk-in shower,” says Myers. “Every shower feels like a luxury.” While sporting a clean and streamlined look overall, the space does incorporate some surprising details like leather pulls and somewhat hypnotic tiled flooring.

Rescuing a 1910 Craftsman cottage from a series of unfortunate remodels

Black, gold, and white are the dominate colors of interior designer Heidi Caillier’s bathroom in Tacoma, Washington. Here, two is better than one in several cases, as in mirrors, sconces, and sinks, and a playful design in the flooring tile keeps things from feeling too serious. Green vases offer a soothing touch.

Couple goes shopping for a new home—and finds themselves in an old grocery store

Matt Nardella and Laura Cripe, co-founders of Moss Design in Chicago, renovated a defunct grocery store in Logan Square into their dream home and office. Just as wooden accents adds warmth to living spaces filled with drywall, concrete, and glass, a vibrant artwork and a dash of color in the towels add some visual interest to this neutral-happy master bathroom.

Embracing indoor-outdoor living in the South Carolina marshlands

Since they live on a 2-acre plot on the edge of marshlands, Michelle Jewell and Ryan Amick spend a lot of time outdoors. However, the inside of their two-story, cedar shake-sided home is just as nice, furnished with vintage finds, contemporary pieces, and handmade items. The bathroom is a quiet and comfortable space, and leans on classic features like a vintage clawfoot tub, pedestal sink, and beadboard.

Carlos Chavarria

A San Francisco remodel brings a couple closer together

A year after they started dating, interior designer Gina Gutierrez and Max Maloney bought an Edwardian flat in Duboce Park in need of a renovation—and they were excited to do some of the work themselves. The couple tackled building floating shelves (with the help of a friend), installing molding, and, most dauntingly, sanding and finishing the floors. The bathroom used to contain an old clawfoot tub that Gutierrez loved, but she liked the idea of a double vanity more. “The old tub was really cool, but I could see that if I tucked a built-in tub under the window, we’d have room for two sinks and a vanity for storage,” she says. “But we kept the look classic with traditional subway tile.”