If your bathroom is boring, ordinary or just plain ugly…and you crave something inspiring, here are thirteen ideas that can really perk up your space.

#1 Cheapest and Easiest – Paint the Walls

Not just any color though…make it fun, current, energetic. Yellow-green is currently a very popular color. Whether you are trend sensitive or not (guess what? everyone is to some extent…but that’s a whole other article) you will want to use colors that appeal to you right now.

With a freshly painted wall, the color scheme above becomes green, black and white. I love the way the black is repeated in four different ways: lamp, stool, floor tiles and picture frame.

Here’s another bathroom in a delicious mocha brown. Note the interesting collection of ornate white framed mirrors in an otherwise un-fussy room.

#2 Change Out Colored Accessories.

This could even be less expensive than painting the walls. New fluffy towels, artwork that echoes the towel color, and a wastebasket that carries it through. It’s a simple but delightful change that will lift your spirits.

#3 Paint the Walls Decoratively

This takes a bit more effort than rolling just one color on the walls. The bathroom below is very eye catching indeed. Our homeowner simply marked off stripes with painter’s tape and created a very cool look for the same price as a solid color.

#4 Use a Towel Display as a Design Element

Keeping the color palette limited to yellow, black, white and gray adds pattern without getting too messy looking. In other words, let’s keep our red towels stored in the linen closet…know what I mean? They wouldn’t fit into the color scheme and would simply create a distraction.

Nicole Lanteri

#5 Add Wallpaper that is Eye Candy

Bathrooms are small. Powder rooms are even smaller. They are a great opportunity to use wallpaper that is wilder than you might ordinarily use. There will not be much of it…especially if you only cover one or two walls. Here are a few great examples to tickle your imagination.

Elegantly Asian

Talk about a conversation piece

Handsome Arts & Crafts style

#6 A New Vanity Can Do Wonders

You can pick up something contemporary like this for very little money

This special chest was repurposed into a vanity by drilling a hole for the faucet and another for the sink.              Not a complicated job.

Let your imagination go wild! I love the way the bicycle is used to hold spare towels.

#7 A New Medicine Cabinet

The one below is shabby chic and brings lots of character into the room.

#8 A Unique or Oversized Mirror

Utopian Lifestyle

Here’s a mirror with plenty of personality. What do you think?

 It’s not for everyone, huh? But…you get my point.

Note how this enormous framed mirror extends behind the vanity all the way down to the baseboards.                Very dramatic. Wow!

#9 Replace Your Old Sink With a Snazzy New One

Vessel sinks are so popular nowadays. If you get a glass one, make sure you select something that you can clean easily. Nothing worse than blobs of toothpaste on your exquisite hand blown glass.

McLean Quinlan

#10 Replace Your Old Faucet with Something That You Love

Michael Penny

An oversized spout

Hego Faucet 

Dual purpose vase ad faucet. I couldn’t resist including this

#11 Light Fixtures – Get Rid of the Ugly!

The badf news is that there are very few attractive bathroom light fixtures on the market. The good news is that they are relatively inexpensive for the important job that they do.

Sconces on either side of the mirror throw better light on your face than light bars mounted above. The ones pictured above are quite handsome. My hunch is that they are on a dimmer which allows the homeowner to create some “atmosphere” when brighter lights are not required for a task such as putting on makeup.

#12 Beautiful Tile Adds Class (and cost)

Tile does not have to be designed in a complex way (like this one below). If you don’t want to stretch your budget this much, consider plain white subway tiles.

#13 Art Work Speaks Volumes About You

Utopian Lifestyle

Here’s a Combination of Many Ideas

Scott Yetman

I think this is an inviting room that feels good.  What do you think?  What would you do differently?

I invite you to leave a comment below. We would love to hear what you love and what you hate….seriously!

Until next time…

Walk in Beauty. It will change your life.