Photo Credit: Burst, www.pexels.com

Ah… luxury. There’s nothing quite like it, is there? The problem is, we don’t all live in a palace! Not to worry – our interior experts have come up with five tips to help you add some luxury to your bathroom.

Whether it’s big or small, up-to-date or a little tired looking, these ideas will give your bathroom that luxurious touch that makes all the difference. Let’s kick off with an underrated classic….

Ambient lighting + Candles for the Bath

The power of ambient lighting in the home is so often underestimated. You wouldn’t believe how much of a difference it makes to relaxing in the sitting room if you just dim the main light and switch on a side lamp – especially if that side lamp is in line with the latest home design trends. It’s an instant transformation from ordinary, functional space to a soft, evening vibe. The same is true of your bathroom.

Obviously with bathrooms, safety comes first – lots of side lamps with wires trailing about the place isn’t ever a good idea. The answer is, of course, candles. Apart from their handy role as an air-freshener, candles create an incredible mood for your bathroom.

We know that this won’t come as a revelation to most Stylenest readers, but it can serve as a reminder; you’ve probably already got a load of candles at home, but how often do you actually make use of them? It tends to be a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing, doesn’t it? But it shouldn’t be! Treat yourself to some of the big, high-end candles and go ahead and luxuriate!

Luxury showerheads

This is a clever little tip. By going for a luxury shower head, you give your whole bathroom set-up an upgrade, without having to break the bank.

When you have a really great shower, the thing that makes it feel so good is the water flow, right? The type of showerhead you use makes all the difference. Improving the performance of your shower doesn’t have to mean investing in a completely new shower or a more powerful pump or getting a plumber in.

Changing the head can take things to the next level, just like when you attach a powerful end piece to your garden hose and achieve a pressure and control that you wouldn’t normally get from the main water supply.

There are so many options here to choose from that the best thing is to think about what you really want from your shower….

• Do you prefer a powerful, concentrated jet of water?
• Or do you like a nice, soft rainfall effect?
• Perhaps you want the best of both and would prefer a multi-functional showerhead?

Remember to think about the look of the showerhead too, not just the performance. Do you want a gleaming, modern style or a vintage look with a Victorian feel to it?

A styled luxurious mirror

“Mirror mirror, on the wall, whose is the most luxurious bathroom of all?” OK, well you don’t have to go too Snow White with it, but mirrors do create an instant luxury feel to any room and the bathroom is certainly no exception.

Generally speaking, the rule is that the bigger the mirror, the more luxurious the effect! (This is one case in which more is definitely more!) The reason is that mirrors are working hard on your behalf. They make rooms feel lighter by reflecting whatever light is coming in through the window or overhead and distributing it more evenly throughout the room.

They also make a room look bigger by tricking the eye. They effectively extend the boundary of a space by replacing a solid wall with an image of more of the room. Obviously, our reason tells us what’s really going on, but at a sub-conscious level we just think – “huh, lovely big room”. (It’s like when you go into a small restaurant and think you’re in a big one, only to discover halfway through the meal that you’ve been looking at a wall of mirror all along!)

Big mirrors placed above the sink with lighting around them also give you that Hollywood dressing room feel – a great way to upgrade the experience of carrying out your daily skincare regime.

A bathroom TV

Now, this is a really luxurious touch – a bathroom TV! There’s nothing quite like sitting back in the bath and catching up on your favourite show while you unwind. What could be better?

If you don’t have a bath though, as so many of us don’t these days, and you’re a convert to showers, then a bathroom TV is perfect for your morning routine. Instead of rushing from pillar to post to take in your favourite breakfast programme, listen to the news and get ready for the day, you can do it all in one place: Lorraine while you’re brushing your teeth? BBC Breakfast while you’re showering?

And then for evenings, you can stick on a music channel and have it blasting away while you get ready to go out. Just picture it – your fav tracks and videos hyping you up as you get ready.

The tech involved these days is really impressive too. Obviously, TVs designed for the bathroom are totally waterproof to make sure everything is safe, but many bathroom TVs actually double as bathroom mirrors as well!

This means that you can use it in TV mode for when you want the TV on, and then put it in mirror mode for when you want a little peace and quiet and don’t want to see a TV screen in the room. Really clever stuff!

Marble finish on the tiles

Marble is just a timeless luxury. Dating back to the design of Italian palaces of centuries ago, it just gives an incomparable finish. You can talk about the appeal of minimalism till the cows come home, but, let’s be honest; a heavy hit of marble in a bathroom just makes you feel like royalty!

The best thing about marble is that this isn’t an all-or-nothing type style. You don’t have to have marble from floor to ceiling – instead, you can just insert a little here and there to create a strong effect.

A marble finish on the tiles and a few marbled touches here are there are actually enough to do an amazing job. It’s just like when you paint a feature wall in a room and leave the other walls white – you get that striking dash of colour without being overwhelmed.

In fact, often, doing it this way makes the marble stand out even more because the eye is drawn to it more readily than if the whole room were decked out with it.

If you found these ideas useful then there are plenty more cunning interior design tips where they came from if you click right here.