How to Choose Colours for your Bathrooms?

Your bathroom speaks. Your bathroom reflects your personality, and the paint colour speaks a lot about you. Hence, choosing the right colour for your bathroom can be a tricky task. You need to make sure that the colours you choose should not only go well with the furniture, bathtub or tiles but should also reflect the overall look you want for your bathroom space.

We suggest asking yourself how you want your bathroom’s theme should be. You want it to look trendy, timeless, bold or relaxing? Once you know the answer the process of picking colours becomes much easy.

So if you are stuck in turmoil to choose the perfect colour for your bathroom, we at Bathrooms 365, have jotted down certain tips and tricks for you that will help you narrow down your search and make choosing bathroom colours less intimidating.

Choose colours that you fancy

The first thing that you should do is to pick colours that you like. This will give you a start from which you can then narrow your list to two or three options. Look at them in different lights and at different times of the day to get a clear opinion.

Pick colours as per their representation

You can also choose colours on the mood they create and what they represent. Like greens have a soothing effect, yellow are energetic, bright reds corresponds to passion and desire but soft pink is sweet and delicate. Blues are calming and associated with softness and purple can be perceived as spiritual. Also, reds, oranges, and yellows are associated with the warmth of the sun and fire while blues, greens, and violets are cool because of their association with water and sky.

But make sure your bathroom should never have all warm or all cool colours. Make the pair interesting, let one colour dominate the other and set the overall tone of the room.

Yellow, a warm colour and green, a cool colour have combined to create a colourful and artistic bathroom

Colour wheel will do the trick for you

You will be amazed to know that there is some science behind which colour coordinates well with the other. So, to know that lay your hands on a colour wheel to know the rules of colour schemes and how and which colours blend with each other. Will blue and yellow go together or blue and green; you will get all these answers by turning to a colour wheel.

The colour wheel

This wheel will help you create palettes by mixing colours. Most common types of colour schemes are:

Monochrome - These combinations use several shades of a single shade like pale blue, sky blue and navy.

Analogous – For a contrast pattern, analogous palette includes colours next to each other in a wheel like green and blue for a comfortable and relaxing feel.

Contrast - This palette is created by using three shades evenly spaced on the wheel, like blue-green, red-violet, for contrast with balanced colours.

Complementary - This is the simplest colour scheme. Using shades opposite to each other in the colour wheel like purple and yellow will guarantee add energy to your bathroom.

A contrast theme bathroom with balanced colours of blue and green give a very calm and relaxing feel to the bathroom

Always follow the ‘rule of three’

The rule of three is the best thing to help you with a bathroom colour scheme. For that, pick one neutral, one bold and one neutral colour and then distribute these colours in your bathroom using the 70-20-10 distribution rule. Use the lightest colour to cover around 70 per cent of the bathroom’s decor, the neutral for 20 per cent, and the brightest colour for 10 per cent. With this rule, your bathroom wall colours will look like as if an expert chose them.

For instance, white, brown and dark green colour combination is very energizing and white, light brown and light green equals cool, calm and classic.

The above picture depicts a clear example of 70:20:10 rule that is used to make this bathroom look elegant and classic. 70 % of the bathroom is light blue, 20 % white and has a little 10% detailing of green and orange in carpets and flowers.

Don’t shy away from mixing two neutrals

Neutral colours never go out of style. If you want your bathroom should have a calm and relaxing effect, then neutral shades are your deal. But remember, not to paint the bathroom in just one neutral colour as it will make it seem dull and boring. Always mix two neutral colours in a proportion of 70: 30. To bring life to the neutral colour palette, include pebbled walls, porcelain tiles, or veined marble on countertops.

Also, use a colour at least three times in a room means in towels, sink or in furniture. Evenly distributed colours will make each shade look as they are included intentionally and not out of nowhere.

Go big and bold in colour pattern

Want your bathroom to be more bold and energetic? Consider bright and bold colours. You can contrast two bold colours and then add a finishing touch with a neutral colour to add a bit of calm. You need to add some neutral colour to add light to your bathroom else your bathroom will look dark and gloomy. For example, orange and blue are complementary bathroom colour ideas, and you can use a bit of white in the sink, tub or in any furniture for that calming effect.

Lime green and black, two bold colours combined with white sink and toilet have created a bold yet fun style

Go organic and natural

Bring the outdoors inside with the nature-inspired colours such as seafoam green, mint and dew colour. These Mother Nature inspired colour palettes make great combos and will help you to enhance an organic vibe in a bathroom. These types of colours never go out of style and often look fun and fresh. Incorporate this tip into your bathroom wall colours to create an eco-friendly look.

A natural colour like mint is a good choice to give a cooling effect your room.

Put efforts in choosing the right accessories

Once you have decided on the colour scheme, make sure you use that colour on the accessories too, just not the wall. Buy some fabric like curtains that will go well with the colour scheme and coordinate it with some beautiful wall hanging. You can also choose a decorative piece that will look fantastic and pretty with the colour scheme.

A beautiful example to add life to your bathroom with accessories when choosing neutral colours

Get inspired by your household

If you are still confused, draw inspiration of colour from the rest of your house. If you have a bold colour in your living room, then paint your bathroom walls with its dominant colour. Doing this will create flow and will enhance the aesthetic of your house too.

A few additional tips

• Make sure that the colour you pick goes well with the existing colours of tiles, vanity etc. to make the whole bathroom look like one continuous place.
• Paint your ceiling and wall in one colour as it will give the appearance of larger bathroom space.
• Choose light shades on doors and windows to make your bathroom look bigger.
• Use light colours to increase the effect of natural light.
• Go for mould and mildew resistant paints like satin paints.
• For small bathrooms use colours like soft green, aqua, icy blue, cream, white, pink and yellow. These colours are more reflective and make space looks open and airy.