Common Bathroom Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

10 Common Bathroom Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

 

To truly design a great bathroom, you need to focus less on the looks (which are also important), but more on how it works. Functionality is key.

Additionally, a new bathroom doesn't come cheap, so you want to do it right the first time. To help save you time and money, we’ve compiled a list of 10 common mistakes design professionals see in a bathroom designed by someone without experience.

 

1 ) Including Giant Bathtubs (and Other Features)

Proportionality is essential to consider when designing a bathroom. While a large tub for soaking after a long day might seem ideal, if there is no room around the tub to clean or too close to the vanity or toilet, things can easily feel too cramped. And, in the case of a toilet, it's a bit gross.

It’s important to keep things in scale and consider space for moving about and cleaning when designing a bathroom.

 

Finally, keep in mind that your extra-large walk-in shower might be a perk for you, but if you eliminate the only bathtub in the home when installing it, it could impact resale value, as many homebuyers still like having a tub in the house.

 

2) Showcasing Visible Toilets

No one wants to come face-to-face with a toilet when they don’t have to. In other words, don’t make the toilet the most visible thing in the bathroom. And don’t put it directly across from the door.

 

For example, if you have a half-bath near the family room, do you want your guest on the couch to have a front row seat to the place where everyone does their business? Luckily, this can easily be avoided with thoughtful design.
Something else to consider is placing the toilet in a separate room completely. This is easy enough to do when creating a master en-suite or even in “Jack and Jill” bathrooms for the kids.

Having a “throne room,” as they are colloquially referred to, makes the bathroom more accessible, especially for busy families and couples. It also allows for great concurrent use, as in if someone needs the toilet, other household members can be in the shower or brushing their teeth without disruption.

3) Forgetting Electrical Outlets

Forgetting electrical outlets is a common bathroom design mistake. It’s not that they are omitted, but rather their placement is off. When remodeling a bathroom (or creating one in a new build), you must take special care to consider the home’s current electrical layout.

Electrical outlets are best served near the vanity for ease of use. It’s also always a good idea to have more than one power outlet in the room, as it can be frustrating to constantly unplug your electric toothbrush and razor to make room for the hair dryer.

 

However, placing the socket more than a short cord’s length from a resting surface can lead to major headaches in everyday use.

 

4) Incorporating No Storage

We keep a lot of things in our bathroom. When planning your design, you need to consider storage. Where will you store the extra toilet paper, shampoo bottles, and toothpaste?

While adding storage after the fact with removable containers is possible, a well-designed bathroom will also have built-in options. For example, many showers now have sleek cutaways in the wall to store toiletries, and most mirrors still double as medicine cabinets.

 

5) Featuring Bad Lighting

A common bathroom design mistake is not to carefully consider the lighting. The right lighting is essential – especially in the bathroom, where we groom ourselves to make our appearance to the world each day. It’s where we start and end our days, so getting the lighting right is critical.

We’ve put together an in-depth guide called "9 Tips for Selecting the Perfect Bathroom Lighting."

We highlight working with backlighting to mitigate shadows in the morning and using dimmers to soften the light’s harshness for sleepy eyes.

 

We also cover ways to utilize natural light and the best bulbs to use.

6) Using Poor Ventilation

Having a nice, bright window for ventilation in your bathroom is not always possible. Occasionally, bathrooms are interior rooms, and more natural ventilation isn’t an option.

To avoid problems like an overgrowth of mold (and the persistent, pungent smells that come with it) in the wettest room in the house, you need to consider other options, like an extractor fan.

Something to remember is that skimping on ventilation will give you one of the biggest headaches in bathroom design. Repainting the walls or replacing a faucet is much easier than starting over again due to poor initial ventilation design.

 

7) Not Considering Layout

Your bathroom’s layout is as important a feature as any when designing the space. It’s very easy to create a room in which features hug the walls (e.g., vanity on one wall, shower across from it) with no real character or use of the space’s middle.

In a smaller bathroom, these floor plans might work perfectly. But, in a larger space, consider dividing the room to make it feel cozier with a small wall in the middle, or even a piece of furniture, like a dressing lounge.

 

Designing your bathroom’s layout is also a time to consider future accessibility. Our linked article provides a complete list of things to keep in mind when designing a bathroom that will age with you.
 

8) Using Poor Measurements

We’ve all seen the design fail photos floating around the internet. You know the ones: the bathroom door slams into the toilet when opened. The only electrical outlet in the room is nowhere near the counter. The floor tiling stops half an inch too early, leaving an awkward gap. Don’t let your bathroom become one of them!

Whether you are your own contractor or hire a professional, one of the easiest mistakes is using improper measurements when installing features. Luckily, it is also one of the easiest mistakes to avoid, as with a little extra care, there will be plenty of room for the toilet.

9) Forgetting Accessories

While this could also be filed under the mistake of not measuring, it happens often enough that it needs its own point. Remember: the water features (sink, shower, toilet, etc.) aren’t the only things to consider when measuring and planning your bathroom’s layout.

You also need to consider whether there will be room for commonly used accessories like the magazine basket, toilet paper holder, towel bars, etc. If you don’t plan ahead and consider these things, the towel bar might not fit anywhere near the shower, and you might then spend every day walking (sopping wet and freezing) to retrieve a towel.

Little things like this can also significantly impact resale value as they are small, but the annoyances can add up over time.

10) Favoring Aesthetic Materials

Certain materials might make a social media-perfect bathroom, but could do less for everyday functionality. For example, marble is an elegant material that looks great in most parts of a home. It’s versatile; you can use it as material for countertops, flooring, etc.

However, a common bathroom design mistake is incorporating marble as flooring. Yes, marble can be expensive (and typically rightly so), but in the bathroom, it’s difficult to maintain…and particularly slippery, which would only compound the frustration of having a too-far-away towel rack.

 

Marble is also very porous, so if improperly sealed, one dropped jar of makeup could ruin it. It’s not worth the risk. If you are keen on the marble aesthetic, speak to your builder about alternate materials that look similar, but don’t run the risk.

11) Bonus Tip

Be flexible when designing your bathroom to avoid common mistakes. Due to bathrooms' “wet” nature, it’s rare not to have some sort of leak or malfunction during construction. Wise homebuilders should expect the unexpected and put a little extra effort into these situations as they arise.