5 Tips for a Functional En-Suite Bathroom

This post was written for the Life According to Steph audience by Alec Neufeld. His extensive background in the construction trade fuels his passion for alternative energy and green building methods. A retired builder, he now enjoys a freelance writing career, alongside helping people as a general contractor.

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An en-suite bathroom can be a great convenience feature, and it can also add a lot to the style and comfort of your home. However, it does require some extra thought in its planning in most cases, as there is a lot of potential to mess things up otherwise. You’ll typically be working with limited space, so making the most of it can be more of a challenge than you might assume.

1. Minimize Space Occupied by the Toilet and Sink

The toilet and sink typically take up the most space in any bathroom, and they are the most troubling factors when it comes to optimizing your use of free space. There are units specifically designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, as well as some which can integrate with other parts of the bathroom to minimize wasted space even more. Bringing the toilet unit closer to the shower is a good example of this – there are even some designs which treat both simultaneously. 

2. Build on the Design of Your Bedroom

A good en-suite bathroom should ideally feel like a natural extension of the bedroom it’s attached to. Try to work with the same colours and shapes that you already have in your bedroom and build on the existing design as much as you can. Of course, this isn’t always an option – for example, when you have a bedroom decorated with a lot of wood and heavy carpeting – but you can usually still find some common points to leverage. Working with a company like beautifulbathroom.net should provide you with plenty of adequate options for matching designs.

3. Use Mirrors to Improve Perception of Spaciousness

A few strategically placed mirrors can work wonders for enhancing the way a tiny, closed-off room feels, and they are perfect for a small bathroom. When done right, this can significantly boost the impression of spaciousness that the bathroom creates, and can be a very adequate way to give yourself some more breathing room without actually expanding the room in a physical sense. 

4. Think About Storage in Advance

Try to come up with some solutions to your potential storage problems ahead of time. Refer to what we said above about furniture designed to work together. There are some storage units specifically designed for bathrooms, such as small drawers that can fit under the sink or even integrate with the sink mirror. Get creative, and don’t be afraid to experiment a little to give your bathroom that extra touch of luxury.

5. Take Advantage of Those Weird Shapes

Just because the en-suite bathroom is in a room with an odd shape, this doesn’t mean that you should consider that space as wasted. Something like a pointed angular window protruding from the room can be a great place for storing your cosmetics, for example. Just try to come up with some creative applications for those unusual nooks and crannies before writing them off as just another part of the aesthetic design.

With some careful planning and forethought, an en-suite bathroom can be a fantastic extension of your bedroom, and it can seem like the house was always designed with the idea of having it there.