Smaller bathrooms can definitely be challenging to design. But like any room, with the right choices or creative design ideas, you can make a small bathroom feel larger and more functional.

One of the first rooms I designed in our new house is my daughter’s bathroom, which also functions as our guest bathroom. We also don’t have a powder room so this bathroom needs to be functional while being cute for my little girl. If you’ve been around for awhile, you know I prioritize functionality as much as I prioritize design/style. You cannot have one without the other in my opinion. So while trying to make this bathroom as beautiful as I can within our budget, I also tried to pack as much functionality that made the most sense for this 8’x5’ bathroom. Here are some design choices I made to maximize space and increase functionality in our daughter’s small bathroom.

4 Creative Design Ideas to Increase Functionality For a Small Bathroom

1. Run tiles high on walls

I’ve renovated quite a few bathrooms in my life and we always run floor to ceiling tiles on the walls. Up north, you’ll often see tiles on the ceilings to protect the drywall. I found that not to be common here in the south. It’s typically only seen in a steam shower. First, I like the idea of the entire area that potentially could get wet to be protected. Secondly, having tiles run to the ceiling draws your eyes up, therefore, creating the illusion of a larger space. Since this bathroom is on the average to smaller size (40 square feet), I wanted to create a visual impact. I extended the tiles along the entire wall . It’s the first thing you see, when you walk into the bathroom. The texture and pearly color of the tile immediately creates a wow factor. Here is a before image of the bathroom. As you can see, the tiles brightened the room and also created a lot of visual interest in the space.

2. Recessed medicine cabinet

Medicine cabinets are often so underrated. They can be cute while being incredibly functional. I love this mirror one that we have in the space. It’s recessed so it simply looks like a beautiful mirror on the wall. It’s unseen additional storage that your guests will probably never know about. We store items that I normally would leave on the counters such as toothbrushes and moisturizers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want my toothbrushes out while other people are using my bathroom and washing their hands. Kinda gross right? So it’s behind the mirror and untouched by others. There is also not a lot of counter space since we were only able to accommodate a 30” vanity. To make this medicine cabinet  even better, I had an outlet installed on the inside of the cabinet. This way we can charge the toothbrushes while being stored away.

3. Shower faucet placement

If you look at the photo, you’ll notice the faucet  is not under the shower head but on the opposite wall. This was not an accident but very intentional. Having the faucets on the opposite wall allows you to turn on the water, set the temperature without having water sprayed on you. If you’re like me, you’re probably extending your arm out while keeping your body as far back as possible when turning on the water. And then you jump as the cold water hits you. Or some days, you just don’t want to get your hair wet because you’re not planning to wash it or it’s looking super cute and you want it last another day. Having the faucet on the opposite wall solves this problem. Maybe not a huge problem, but for all my girlies that do not wash their hair every day, you get me! This “trick” helped me to increase functionality for our small bathroom which makes me very happy.

4. Half glass shower doors

I prefer to have a closed shower with a door. However, in this case we opted to not have one because of how tight the space would feel. The shower is pretty narrow so having a door swinging in and out didn’t feel like the right choice. The door would also have to be pretty small so that it wouldn’t hit the bathroom door in the event both were open at the same time (probably not likely to happen but something I wanted to account for). I could have definitely opted for sliding glass doors but it’s wasn’t the look I wanted. I prefer a clean, minimalistic look so we opted to have just one large glass panel and no doors. The glass panel is large enough to prevent most of the water spilling outside the shower. An added bonus is that there is less glass to clean! It is definitely a way that increases functionality for our small bathroom.

It may be small but it’s mightly and let’s not forget, super cute. It’s a bathroom that my little girl can enjoy and also grow into. We added this fun bath mat for a whimsical touch to reflect her playful personality. I layered in some of her favorite colors with the towels we used and added this daisy towel hook. The art on the wall is also a bit more playful but I opted for vintage frames to make it feel more sophisticated. These creative design ideas to increase functionality for a small bathroom really serve us well in our new home.

If you liked this post you can read about my Home Office Ideas In a Small Home here.

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