How to Refurbish Your Bathroom: 5 DesignerTips

A great bathroom refurbishment comes down to four things: planning, light, materials, and the details you touch every day. Here in Palm Beach our homes are full of sunshine and we use our bathrooms a lot, which makes the bathroom one of the rooms where a renovation changes how a house feels the most.

Palm Beach-raised designer Celerie Kemble once said, "my bathroom is where I put my biggest dollar commitment." At Ability Glass and Mirror, we agree. Here are our five tips, along with advice from some of the designers we admire most and a little of the British design thinking behind our own work.

Start with a plan

We're lucky to work alongside some incredible interior designers, and the bathroom is one room where we always recommend hiring one. Bathrooms are wetter and usually smaller than kitchens, yet they have to work hard every day, so a professional helps you get the most out of every inch and make the bathroom

When I refurbished our bathroom in London, I knew which colors and finishes I liked. What I didn't know was whether the hidden storage door would clear the swan-neck faucet I'd fallen for, or what size vanity and lights the room needed. I also hadn't thought about how my unlacquered brass fixtures would sit alongside the other brass and gold pieces I'd rather naively chosen.

A good designer will help you pick the right bath or shower for your family, make sure your fixtures and finishes work together, find enough storage, get the lighting right for how you actually use the room, and tie the bathroom into the rest of your home.

1. Use mirrors to bounce the light around

Mirrors are the quickest way to make a bathroom feel bigger and brighter. Talking about rooms with little natural light, Celerie Kemble told Southern Home, "I'll always use a mirror across from a window when I can.

" She also likes reflective surfaces that do more than serve a purpose, such as a glossy painted wall, a mirrored piece of furniture, or shelves lined with mirror. In a bathroom, you might hang a large mirror opposite the window as well as one over the vanity, paint the ceiling in a high-gloss finish, or choose a mirrored cabinet or polished stone that catches the light.

2. Get the lighting and color right at the mirror

You start and end every day at the bathroom mirror, so the light there matters. Kemble has pointed out that good mirror lighting can leave you feeling great about how you look, while bad lighting can have you doubting yourself before you've even left the house.

Color makes a difference too. Danielle Rollins, who splits her time between Atlanta and Palm Beach, told Coveteur, "Pink is the one color that always makes your skin look unbelievably good." That's why she often uses it in bathrooms and dressing rooms.

Our advice is to put sconces on either side of the mirror at face height instead of relying on one overhead light, use warm bulbs on a dimmer, and steer clear of cool, blue-white tones near the vanity. Soft pink or warm white walls will do the rest.

3. Treat it like a real room, the English way

British design shapes much of our work, and nobody does the English bathroom better than London designer Rita Konig. In her House & Garden column on bathrooms, she writes:

"Bathrooms so often have hard surfaces and brash lighting. There are times when this is perfectly fine (when efficiency is required over relaxation), but I really like bathrooms to be treated as if they were normal rooms that happen to have a bathtub and a sink."

That might mean a comfortable chair, a rug, pictures on the walls, a painted vanity that looks like a piece of furniture, or a fabric skirt under the basin. Konig gave Deborah Needleman's country house in Garrison, New York, proper English-style bathrooms, and the same thinking works just as well in Palm Beach.

She is also firmly against waste. She has said it horrifies her to see good marble "being ripped out of bathrooms and thrown away," so before you demolish anything, look at what could be restored or reused.

4. Make the shower the star

The shower enclosure is usually the biggest single thing in a bathroom, so it's where a good choice makes the most difference. A standard frameless panel works fine, but a well-detailed enclosure can become the focal point of the room.

Metal frames in polished nickel, unlacquered brass, bronze or black steel give the room structure. They suit the classic Palm Beach look as well as a more Edwardian English feel, and they can be made with divided panes, arched tops or a matching door.

The glass itself matters as much as the frame. Ordinary glass has a green tinge you can see along the edges, especially on thicker panels. Low-iron glass is much clearer, so your marble and tile look the color they should. Reeded or fluted glass, with its vertical ribs, blurs the view for privacy but still lets the light through. In low-iron, it looks stunning on shower screens, water closet doors and vanity fronts. Textured, antiqued and lightly tinted glass are worth a look too.

One practical note for coastal homes: ask about metal finishes made to handle humidity and salt air, so the frame still looks good years from now.

5. Spend money on the hardware

Faucets, shower valves, door handles, towel bars and cabinet knobs are small, but you touch them every day. Good hardware feels solid, works smoothly and ages well.

If the budget is tight, this is where we'd spend it. A simple vanity and plain tile can look expensive with heavy, well-finished fittings. Pick one metal and carry it through the room, shower frame included. Unlacquered brass develops a lovely patina over time, and exposed shower valves or cross-handle taps give a classic English look. Even new cabinet knobs can lift the whole room.

Planning your bathroom?

The best bathrooms come down to flattering light, honest materials and a few standout details, like a bronze-framed shower in low-iron reeded glass or a pair of well-placed sconces. At Ability Glass and Mirror, we bring a British eye to Palm Beach homes, and we'd love to help with yours.

Get in touch to start planning your bathroom refurbishment.