Here’s Few Bathroom Ideas for India’s Upper-Middle-Class – Pt 1

As part of your interior design process, one of the priority areas you need to get right is the bathroom.  

As an urban home buyer, you must get the best out of your bathroom.  

Your bathroom needs to be the most beautiful, inviting and functional space with a stunning look to relax your senses. A bathroom is now a space in your house where you pamper yourself, and meet yourself in a calm and tranquil state of mind. 

As you enter your bathroom, the mind and body must ease beyond compare! This means as an urban upper-middle-class home buyer, you must want more. For this to happen, you need to invest time and effort in making your bathroom design exceptional. 

Sometimes our bathroom interiors don’t turn out the way they should! The reason is simple- lack of time or sheer lack of interest, and/or over-dependency on an interior designer. 

Build Your Knowledge, Refine Your Expectations 

What you can do with your home bathrooms depends on how well-prepared and clear you are about your expectations and sense of aesthetics.  

More often than not, we end up designing or creating a bathroom without much thought on building our taste or knowledge around it. That doesn’t get you the best value for your money. 

So, even if you are busy, it’s good to spare some quality time in building your expectations and looking for what can be a dream bathroom, regardless of its size.  

Of course, having an interior designer is a great idea, but being prepared and having clear ideas about what your likes, dislikes, preferences and priorities matter! 

No matter what home you have. Your home could be a studio apartment, a bigger 3 or 4 BHK unit, an expensive ultra-luxe high-rise apartment, or a standalone building apartment/builder floor. You simply need to rise above the ordinary and prepare yourself to know what to expect from the bathroom. 

The first step to designing a good bathroom is to build on your priorities. Expect more from yourself. Try harder to think about what will make you and your family happy, what will surprise you, what will soothe your senses, and what will make you want to feel the joy of using the bathroom more often than not.  

You have many modern companies that have catalogues that give a complete idea of how to build a modern-looking bathroom. 

Look them up, and pick on the ideas. This helps you have a more confident conversation with your interior designer. 

While an interior designer will give you many ideas, it always pays to have an idea beforehand and to challenge yourself to keep abreast with all that’s happening in the bathroom design and décor space in India and worldwide. 

Let’s explore some beautiful bathroom ideas and inspiration over a series of articles to get you thinking and truly inspired… 

Small Bathroom Areas- The Space Crunch 

The square foot areas and natural light get problematic with small bathroom areas since the ventilation and window areas are also smaller. 

The best way to mitigate this issue is to squeeze the right type and amount of fixtures despite the challenge of spaces you want to decorate. 

Done right, even a small bathroom can seem much brighter and far more spacious than it is! 

And yes, it has nothing to do with spending a ridiculous amount of money. For example, things like carving a window into the wall or adding glass bricks are not as expensive as we may wrongly assume. 

Knowing about a variety of small bathroom design ideas makes you equipped to reimagine spaces, and gives you the conviction that there’s a lot you can do even with bold designs.  

Bathroom Ideas to Get Inspired: An Exhaustive & Suggestive List  

1. Use Light and Bright Colours 

Light and bright work wonders!  

For instance, a wooden floor in a bathroom can do magic for your urban bathroom. It exudes warmth and serenity like nothing else. 

Similarly, a soft blue-coloured bathroom reflects the natural light oozing through the windows in the most remarkable way.   

This makes the spaces surrounding the shower/bath area far more open. Lightweight curtains can also be used to allow maximum penetration of light. 

2. Enchanting Dark Colour Scheme 

Surprising as it may sound, black colour can also create an illusion of a bigger space. This is so true of a small bathroom. Glossy super dark colours have a mesmerising effect on how spacious and rich they can feel.  

The effect is nothing short of a dark starry night where the expanse of the skies opens up in your small bathroom area. The tiny amount of light that reflects from dark or black surfaces is enough to highlight the bathroom fixtures and accessories.  

In fact, the lighter the fixtures, the more they outshine in a dark-coloured scheme of your bathroom. Even large-looking lighting and bulbs create an effect in the black bathroom that truly enhances the bathroom fixtures. 

3. Mirror Mirror on The Wall 

To get a big feel, you can choose to mirror your entire wall of the bathroom. Do not just hang in a mirror. The reflection of light can double up like a window. Even the light that enters through the door when you open your bathroom creates a marvellous effect. 

4. Glass Shower Partition or Ready-Made Enclosure: A Great Option 

Glass doors or partitions not only keep unnecessary water from splashing from the bathroom to the Water Closet area but also give it a more chic look. It certainly helps keep your bathroom dry. It does open up spaces, and the additional Rs 30,000 to 60,000 you spend on the glass shower from reputed brands like Jaquar is a no-brainer. They are like an investment into functionality and aesthetics rolled into one! 

5. No Shower Door, Just Half-Frame Partitions 

If your bathroom has a reasonably decent width or about 6 feet then you can easily just put a static partition or half frame with no door to slide. This gives a massive sense of spaciousness without cluttering the space.  

The shower doesn’t splash water outside if you plan your water drain sensibly with tiles sloping towards the drain right below the shower area. 

6. Backlit Mirror 

These can be classy and chic, and also double up as a reliable source of light that elevates the mood while using the bathroom. Even when you are looking at the mirror, brushing your teeth, or shaving etc. the backlit mirror can be very soothing and non-intrusive to the eye. 

Unless you evaluate such ideas for yourself and get a complete grip of what to expect from your bathroom space! 

Click here for Part II