How to Decorate your Bathroom on a Budget

Let me show you how to decorate your bathroom on a budget with my styling breakdown.

Are you ready to decorate your bathroom? If you ask me, bathrooms are the easiest room to decorate since they are typically the smallest space in your home which leaves you with very few options. A finite amount of options can make you feel limited, but in this case, I find it to be a good thing. Why? Fewer options require little creativity making your bathroom the easiest space to decorate in your home!

So, whether you are starting from scratch in your first home or wanting to update the décor you’ve been staring at for 30 years, your bathroom is a great place to start! In this post, I take you through the steps we took when updating our hall bathroom by starting with the walls and working our way to the cute accent pieces.

This post is all about how to decorate your bathroom!

Pin it For Later: How to Decorate

Are you Ready to Start Decorating?

Consider the current state of your bathroom. If you are happy with the foundation of the space then feel free to jump ahead. However, keep reading if you are less than satisfied with the paint color, lighting, or flooring.

Related Post: If you need some more guidance before the decorating stage, check out my How to Decorate post for my step-by-step guide!

Paint

Does your paint need freshening up? If so, I highly suggest going neutral with a gray or something similar if you despise painting as much as I do. Trendier colors or accent walls won’t last you as long. Lighter colors will make the room feel bigger and vice versa. We painted our entire house with Sherwin William’s Mindful Gray and I love it! If going 100% neutral bores you to death, consider a fun accent wall with a pop of color, wallpaper, or shiplap. Check out our Board and Batten Entry for some inspo.

Lighting

What is your lighting situation in your bathroom? If your current fixture looks outdated to you, spray paint can do wonders if a new fixture is out of your budget. Replacing yellow-ish globes with white ones can make quite the difference by brightening the space. If you need to replace them altogether, check the clearance section at your favorite hardware store to keep the costs down.  Once you start putting your bathroom together, you may consider adding a little lamp for additional light.

Is there a Window in your Bathroom?

Does your bathroom have a window? Ours doesn’t, but window treatments add warmth to a space and make it look more complete. We hung our extra long white linen curtains 2 inches from our ceiling to give the illusion of higher ceilings in our living room. When staging our first house to sell, we added a set of bamboo shades to our kitchen window in order to add some texture near our very white cabinets. A bamboo shade would be a great addition to a bathroom window. If you are not a curtain or shade person, consider adding a simple window casing around your windows.

Flooring

How’s your flooring? If you absolutely hate the flooring, then I would suggest changing it so you can truly enjoy your updated space. If replacing it is too expensive, try a budget-friendly DIY makeover by painting it. I have yet to do this, but I’ve seen it all over IG. Or maybe a nice big rug will do the trick?

Before we moved into our fixer-upper (see our crazy auction story here), we laid gray LVP throughout our entire home and a faux tile LVP in our bathrooms. I prefer rugs over carpet because they are cheaper and easier to replace. If you have the funds to replace your flooring, be sure to shop around. I would avoid the large chain stores. We found great prices at Hoods Hardware Store.

Vanity

Once you are satisfied with the foundation of your bathroom, I think the vanity is where you should focus next. If you don’t like your vanity, now is the time to change it by swapping it out with a new one or doing a DIY update. To help with the cost, I decided to paint our bathroom vanities when we first purchased our home.

If you decide to take the route I did and paint your vanity, I highly recommend the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation Kit. We chose to go with the color cadet gray. The kit comes with everything you need and the process requires NO SANDING!!! I’ve used the kit several times and very happy with the results.

Related Post: Check out my Kitchen Cabinet Makeover post for my details on this super easy process!

Bathroom Hardware

Matching bathroom hardware will definitely enhance the look of your bathroom and give it more of a completed look. Bathroom hardware includes vanity knobs, faucets, towel holder, toilet paper holder and shower curtain rod. We have yet to upgrade our faucets, but all of the other hardware is oil-rubbed bronze. To be more budget-friendly, consider spray painting your existing hardware.

Our Bathroom Hardware

• Shower curtain rod: This curved-style rod gives you more room in your shower
• Vanity Hardware (Cabinet knobs, Drawer pulls): After Shopping around, I found Amazon to have the best prices
• Towel holder
• Toilet paper holder: I love this simple design because it’s SO easy to change the roll – No excuses 🙂

Shower Curtain + Linens

Shower Curtain

The shower curtain sets the vibe of your bathroom. It’s the easiest way to decorate your bathroom too. You can go bold with color or more neutral like the one I chose. Either way, I would suggest purchasing your shower curtain first, then finding a rug and towels to coordinate. When I was searching for a shower curtain, I went with white to allow the most light into the shower.

Hand Towel

Add Turkish hand towels to the list of things Instagram made me buy! I kept seeing these cuties on my feed and loved the cool ways people were folding them. I’m going to be honest, I only bought them for the cool aesthetic, but apparently, the extra-long fibers of Turkish cotton is known to become fluffier and more absorbent each wash. Who knew? Taking an extra moment to make sure your towel is folded nicely can help with the overall look of your bathroom.

Rug

Let’s talk rugs! There are a few things to consider if you want to make your bathroom seem larger. So instead of chopping up your space with two small rugs in front of the vanity and toilet, try one big one stretching across the entire floor. Even though I absolutely love our rug, I wouldn’t recommend white rugs if you have kids or dogs. I have to wash this baby way too often.

Bathroom Shelf

Adding a bathroom shelf above your toilet isn’t an original idea, but I highly suggest adding one! It’s a great way to add some decor and function to your bathroom. When decorating shelves, use a variety of heights and textures. Odd numbers and asymmetrical arrangements are more interesting to the eye, so keep that in mind if something looks off or boring to you. I keep ours simple with a fake plant, my DIY shiplap reversed canvas (see tutorial here), and mason jars to hold my q-tips and cotton balls.

Bathroom Tray

A tray, small basket, lazy Susan (click here for my tutorial) or even a cake stand is a great way to corral your bathroom items in one spot. I used a cake stand for height so my plant would disguise the outlet. You may consider doing the same thing to display a fake plant, candle, tissues, q-tips, lotion, or hand soap. There’s also a small basket sitting on the back of my toilet to hold an extra roll of toilet paper (don’t make your guests hunt for tp) and a bottle of Poo-Pourri.

Free Decorating Guide

Want some more decorating inspo? Snag my FREE decorating guide to help you make your home a space you can be proud of! This guide take you through my simple process of decorating.

Click here for your FREE Decorating GUIDE

Share How you Decorate your Bathroom

As always, thank you for following along with me in my creative journey. Be sure to tag me and use #meagannicholedotcom when sharing how you decorate your bathroom! Thanks for stopping by MeaganNichole.com

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