If you’re knee-deep in busy family life right now, your bathroom probably feels less like those sleek spa recreations you see so often on Instagram and more like the aftermath of a terrible event. Your fixtures are most likely pushed to breaking point daily, your surfaces are probably pretty cluttered, and you’re constantly asking yourself: Will this situation ever improve?
Admittedly, achieving a sleek bathroom finish is far from easy when you have kids of any age at home. Will it work to invest in marble countertops and claw-footed bathtubs right now? Probably now. But your bathroom could still look a whole lot better if you simply approach it with the following key priorities in mind.
1 – Design for Durability
Look, you’re simply not at a time in your life right now where you can go all out with the most attractive bathroom design in the world, and that’s okay. Do you know why? Because, durability is way more important. If you made the mistake of leaning into breakable materials that are difficult to clean and wear poorly, then even the most stylish additions will soon start looking a little sorry for themselves!
Instead, every stage of the design process should see you considering the durability of your choices. In other words, you need to be constantly positioning substance over style. Forget that great-looking glass cabinet that’ll shatter no sooner than your kids have looked at; you want to lean towards more durable options like these oak vanity units, which can withstand far heavier usage for a lot longer.
You’ll also want to steer clear of impracticalities like tiny tiles that would require hours of scrubbing to keep the grout clean. Larger tiles, or even complete wall panels, will ensure a bathroom that looks great, even when you don’t have much time to clean it!
2 – Manage the Storage Challenge
Keeping your bathroom clutter-free was easy enough when there were two of you, but it gets a whole lot harder to stay organised if you add two or more children to the equation. What’s worse is that clutter will build up far more quickly than you expect, considering the need for bath toys, and multiple bottles of kid-safe bubble bath, shampoo, and so on. Suddenly, your bathroom sides are so filled with stuff that this room couldn’t look less like a spa if it tried!
This is why, instead of prioritising potpourri and pretty ornaments, you can achieve an attractive bathroom by making storage your main design focus. In particular, you need to maximise storage however you can. Obviously, a vanity is a great place to start here and also looks fantastic, especially if you opt for a stylish double unit that also conveniently gives you double the space.
But this isn’t the only storage option you have in your corner. You can also optimise storage by choosing sleek mirrors with inbuilt cabinets, or even squeezing tall, narrow cabinets into tiny unused corners. Open shelving could also be your friend and feel like a style addition, though try to keep this for aesthetic storage purposes, like keeping neatly rolled towels or hiding your endless supply of bathroom products in attractive and neat baskets.
3 – Think About Longevity
Let’s say you have young kids right now. Your main concern will naturally be hiding the endless supply of bath toys and keeping your kids happy. But, jump forward a couple of years, and priorities inevitably change. Hence, it also pays to think about longevity, or at least, a design that can grow alongside your kids and still look great.
Mainly, this means avoiding design elements that are very specific to young kids, such as toy hammocks, gimmicky character toilet seats, and wall stickers. Instead, try to keep things pretty neutral, as this ensures that your bathroom both looks better upfront and will have a lot more staying power.
It might also be worth remembering that, while a bath is essential for younger children, your teens won’t be so keen on sitting down and soaking. Hence, you would be better off with a dual shower-bath combo that looks slick and caters for those growing tastes. Remember, too, that your kids will grow a fair amount in quite a short space of time. Factor for that with stylish additions like an adjustable or ceiling-mounted showerhead that looks great, and makes family life easier.
Sleek family bathrooms might be hard to come by, but they are possible using these top tips.
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