Bathroom design tips for those on a small budget: Guard Against Moisture Damage. Water is the enemy of bathrooms, but moisture is tough to avoid in a room where you’re flushing, showering, and washing your hands constantly. There are a couple important ways to protect your new furnishings and fixtures from water damage: Grout isn’t glamorous, but it does the important work of sealing out dirt and water. It also helps keeps installations structurally stable. You can choose grout that stands out or blends in, but if grimy grout lines drive you crazy, don’t choose white. If the grout is going to get wet frequently, go for synthetic epoxy grout. If not, choose cementitious grout. The bottom 40 to 48 inches of your bathroom walls are most in danger of splashes. Protect them with tile or beadboard coated with oil-based paint.

Large format tile can make a small room feel bigger and a large room feel positively expansive. It immediately makes a bathroom, kitchen, or laundry room feel contemporary and clean. Make sure your tile craftsman knows to make extra-thin grout; chunky grout will ruin the smooth, continuous aesthetic.

I love the look of light tile and dark grout, but when we built I had everything put in white on white. Staining the grout dark is a simple and easy way to mimic the modern, international look of classic subway tile. I’ve done this at our home, and loved the results. I had no idea that there were so many simple yet dramatic DIY bathroom upgrades besides the standard switching textiles and painting the walls. These do-it-yourself projects make a big impact by upgrading the fixtures, hardware, and whole landscape of the bathroom—you can even do all five in just one weekend!

When you’re selling your home, the amount of space you have is going to play a huge part in how quickly and how well it sells. Creating a larger bathroom will be a great bonus for potential buyers.If there’s no way for you to increase the size of your bathroom, it’s easier than you think to simply create the illusion of a larger bathroom. One of the ways you can do this is by replacing an old bathtub with a shower and adding a glass door to that shower. When you use a shower curtain or some other completely opaque barrier for a shower door, a good portion of the space in your bathroom is cut off from sight. By using glass instead, that space becomes visible, and your bathroom doesn’t seem so claustrophobic. Find extra details on https://www.apsense.com/article/how-to-increase-home-value-with-a-bathroom-renovation.html.

For a budget version (which may serve an especially small bathroom best), opt for a tubular skylight or, as it’s also known, a solar tube (pictured above). A much smaller version of a traditional skylight, a solar tube is a 10- or 14-inch diameter sheet metal tube which reflects and diffuses sunlight throughout a room. Because they don’t require new drywall and alterations to framing like a traditional sunlight, they can be installed for between $500 and $1,000. Keep in mind that a solar tube will offer light but not the view that a traditional skylight affords.