Top 5 Bathroom Trends Right Now

Ah, Bathrooms… they’re one of the hardest rooms for anyone in a home to renovate. Fixture heavy & trade labour intensive can often mean people get overwhelmed or too scared to tackle this room, for fear of not getting all the steps of the process right…

Now we’ve become a nation of #stayathomes, there’s been a massive boom in home renovating with kitchens & bathrooms being transformed like no other. Not only will these rooms add real value to your property, they’ll create an environment for you to cocoon in, all in comfort of your own home. As we spend more & more time in our homes (in light of the current pandemic), the need to create spaces we love is gaining importance.

If your bathroom has seen better days & is in need of an overhaul, don’t be scared to give it the full 5-star treatment. But before you do so, it might be handy to know what the latest design trends are before you go all gung ho with the sledgehammer…

1.  LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED

While plain white ceramic basins will never go out of style, there’s a definite move towards natural materials like stone, quartz & concrete basins – and materials that mimic these looks. We all live in a highly digitised world (iphones, ipads, laptops etc) so there’s a strong desire for people to now connect with nature through the materials and textures we install & use in our homes.

@beachsociety

Stone gives that raw, earthy quality to any bathroom & can be teamed with a timber vanity for warmth, or a stone countertop for a more austere look (think industrial style). Homeowners who love the minimalist look will love these types of fixtures mounted on a pedestal.

 

Don’t think you always need to go for bleak prison-grey concrete; today’s concrete basins come in a sea of colours ranging from dusty pinks to powder blues & everything in between. Make no mistake about it, we’re embracing colour like never before.

Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
Concrete bowl sink by Nood Co, as seen on The Block

Gone are the days where it was hip to be square, our fixtures and basins are also embracing shapes of all kinds. Let it be known… curves are officially back in 😉

Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
Omvivo Villa countertop basin made from solid surface
2.  MARBLE TONES

Let’s face it, marble has never really gone out of fashion & probably never will. It adds high-stakes glamour to any bathroom. But thankfully these days, you don’t need to buy a whole marble slab in order to get the look. You’ll love that there’s marble-look porcelain tiles and plenty of composite stone or solid-surface products that can cover your bathroom in beautiful marbled tones, without the hefty, out-of-the-question price tag of real marble.

Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
Marble-look solid surface countertop
Marble tiles laid in herringbone pattern

CaesarStone™ manufactures engineered quartz to mimic the look of marble & you can use it in vanities, bath surrounds, shower recesses, floor panels & window sills. Companies such as Dekton make man-made sheets that come in a range of thicknesses that will make you swear your surfaces are real marble.  Fake it till you make it, eh?

Large-format porcelain wall and floor tiles that mimic the look of marble
Caesarstone wall panels
Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
Dekton’s marble look sheets. This one’s called Liquid Sky.
3.  KEEP THE LOO FROM VIEW

Now, many of you have heard me bang on over the years about my pet hate: your toilet in full view as you enter a bathroom. No matter how cool or expensive your new loo is, a focal point it’s not. So, I’m secretly loving the trend towards a toilet with its own separate domain, whether it’s a privacy half wall, frameless textured glass – or even contained in its very own glass cubicle. It’s a leaf straight out of the design book of top resorts that gets a big tick from me! Last year’s Blockheads featured this look in a couple of bathrooms, which no doubt nudged it into the public domain.

Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
Blockheads Tess & Luke’s winning bathroom
Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
2019 Blockheads Jess & Mel’s bathroom
4.  TAP INTO A WORLD OF COLOUR

When it comes to tapware, chrome has definitely taken a back seat to a whole range of inventive finishes. Matt black has been in for a while, along with brass, copper, gold, rose gold and, well, just about any metallic finish you can think of. It’s official … metals are having their moment right now.

Photo by The Design Villa on Houzz
Cherie-Barber_Renovating-For-Profit_Bathroom-Trends
Photo by GDP Interior Design on Houzz

But, the newest trend for those who like the pared back, natural Scandi look is matte white tapware. It gives you the ability to make your tapware completely disappear into a sea of white tiles & fixtures for a completely minimalist look (think “chemist laboratory”). You can team it with a contrasting colour like a charcoal basin or with blonde timber for an authentic Scandi look. If you’re going to experiment with any trend that’s likely to date, tapware is probably your safest bet in a bathroom. Like costume jewellery, you can always change it at same point when the novelty wears off.

White tapware that makes your tapware less of a feature
5.  BESPOKE LIGHTING

Last, but certainly not least, you’d be crazy not to take advantage of some of the fantastic lighting trends now available for bathrooms, particularly in the age of LED lighting. This crucial aspect of bathroom design often gets overlooked in the frenzy of tile shopping, sizing up vanities & tapware!

To create atmosphere in your bathroom, you won’t get that 5-star resort feeling if you fail to install a thoughtful mix of general lighting, task lighting & mood lighting.

Bathroom mirrors with built-in LED lighting are a hot trend right now besides being dead practical. It takes care of task lighting when you’re applying your lippy (ladies) or having a shave you can actually see (fella’s).

Back-lit LED mirrors

For a futuristic look, you could incorporate LED strip lighting into your walls, floors, ceiling or around the base of your vanity. For general overhead lighting, it’s hard to go past LED recessed ceiling lights which are so perfectly suited to bathrooms.

LED strip lighting

For mood lighting, you got to love a beautiful wash of soft light that a tasteful wall sconce or 2 delivers. One things for certain, we’ve sure moved on from that oyster light or fluoro strip lighting in the dead centre of your bathroom ceiling!

Any contemporary bathroom needs a thoughtful mix of lighting.
Beautiful wall sconces for accent lighting.

At the end of the day, renovating your bathroom can be scary but its not a reason not to do it. If you’re not feeling brave enough to co-ordinate all the licensed tradies yourself, rest easy knowing there’s plenty of good companies around that can manage the whole process for you.

As we spend more time at home, bathrooms can be a good place to unwind … who doesn’t love the thought of kicking back and soaking in the tub in your own spa like sanctuary?

Have you noticed any other hot bathroom trends in 2020? Share your thoughts.

Much love,
Cherie x

Please wait...

9 Comments

  1. Fantastic Article Cherie!
    Thank you.

    To the point, on trend and fantastic examples given. All very tasteful bathrooms and suggestions.

    Thanks for this!

  2. Hi Cherie,

    Another idea which has been the most useful for our bathroom has been the use of a light sensor underneath the floating bench, along the wall. Perfect for middle-of-the-night bathroom visits, without being blinded by bright lights.

    Cheers,
    Lisa

  3. Thank you Cherie 🌹Fabulous designs as usual. You’re still the Queen 👸 of renos. Floor heating in bathrooms would be great in cooler areas.

  4. I would also suggest a slight texture in the floor tile so it is non-slippery. When my Dad was elderly, ACAT noted that his bathroom floor was very slippery and needed to be addressed. In my recent bathroom renovation I took note of the observation, even though I am not quite as elderly!!

  5. For us, the big thing in our bathroom renovation was to add under-tile heating. It cost so little compared with the rest of the bathroom (about the same as all the tap fittings combined), yet gives a feeling of genuine warmth and welcome at any time of the day. Ours has a programmable control panel, so I have set it to warm to 22C an hour or so before we shower and maintain that temperature for another hour or so afterwards so the towels dry off on the rails. During winter I have it programmed to maintain a minimum of 18C the rest of the time, just so it doesn’t take so long to warm up on chilly days, and so there is somewhere nice and comforting to change for bed on chilly nights! It’s one of those things that I had always thought of as an expensive luxury, but it truly wasn’t expensive and it has added so much charm to the room.

  6. I wish you had your own TV show Cherie. I have seen some of when you did some work in America and always look out for you on TV in Australia. You are so practical and have great common sense. Thanks too, to those who, behind the scenes do great work also.
    When I was young, I wanted to do what you do but wasn’t allowed. I couldn’t get a credit card without my husbands approval. It was the way it was back then.

    Love to all
    Cheryl

Leave a Comment