15 Bathroom Ideas for Small Bathroom Designs in Auckland

A small bathroom doesn't have to feel like a compromise. Plenty of Auckland homes, from Grey Lynn bungalows to 1990s North Shore townhouses, came with a separate toilet and a bathroom barely big enough to turn around in, usually with one small window and a shower box that makes the room feel half its size. The right small bathroom ideas change how a tight room feels far more than its square metres do.

Here are 15 bathroom ideas for small bathroom designs, each shown on a bathroom Superior Renovations has renovated in Auckland. They suit a very small bathroom, a narrow ensuite or a family bathroom that has to work harder. For layouts by room size, current costs and the NZ rules, see our small bathroom renovation guide for Auckland homes. This list sticks to the design moves: what each one does, where it suits, and the trade-offs to talk through before anything is ordered.

1. Add Mirrors to Make a Small Bathroom Look Bigger

A mirror is the cheapest way to double the perceived size of a small bathroom. In a narrow room with one wall free of fixtures, a mirror across the whole wall can make it read twice as wide. It also bounces light around, so a dim room gets brighter without a new fitting.

If a mirrored wall feels like too much, go big above the vanity instead: a mirror the full width of the vanity, or a mirrored cabinet with storage behind the glass. If you want a backlit LED mirror, tell the electrician before the wall is lined.

In small Auckland bathrooms the optical tricks matter more than the budget. A big mirror, light large-format tiles and a floating vanity will make a tight room feel open before you've spent a dollar on anything fancy. We design the sightline from the door first, then place everything else around it.
— Dorothy Li, Design Manager, Superior Renovations

2. Floating Vanities

A floating (wall-hung) vanity leaves the floor visible underneath, and an unbroken floor line is what makes a small room read larger. Lifting the vanity off the floor makes the bathroom look bigger, easier to clean and gives you storage space underneath.

Timber-look boards and shaker doors mean a wall-hung unit suits cottage and rustic schemes as well as modern ones. Sort two things early: solid fixing in the wall behind the lining, and a carcass board with high water resistance. When an off-the-shelf unit leaves an awkward gap, a vanity can be built to the exact width of the wall. Here's a designer's take on custom bathroom vanities from Little Giant Interiors.

The photos above come from two of our projects: the ensuite in a Greenlane home where we turned the bathroom into an ensuite, so the owners were no longer sharing one toilet, and the custom floating vanity in our Westmere wet-room bathroom, built from high water-resistant Melteca MDF board.

3. Larger Floor Tiles

It sounds backwards, but large tiles suit small bathrooms better than small ones. Fewer grout lines mean fewer visual breaks, so a small floor reads as one continuous surface. For a small bathroom we suggest 600 x 600mm squares or 600 x 900mm rectangles.

Two checks before you fall for a tile. Large tiles need a flat, well-prepared floor, and the shower still has to fall to the waste, so the tiler may cut the tiles into the fall or use a linear drain. And check slip resistance: glossy porcelain gets slippery when wet. A matte or textured finish is the safer floor.

Examples above: one of three bathrooms in a St Heliers family home, in medium brown 600 x 600mm tiles; a Hillsborough home where a small separate toilet got large light-grey tiles while the main bathroom went with mosaics; and a Papatoetoe family bathroom with large dark floor tiles.

4. Wet Areas

A wet area is a fully waterproofed, tiled shower zone with no tray and no enclosure, usually separated from the room by a single glass panel. Without a shower box or raised tray breaking up the floor, a small bathroom looks larger and cleans faster. They're now one of the features Auckland clients ask us for most.

The trade-off is waterproofing. More of the floor gets wet, so the membrane has to cover the whole zone, the floor has to fall to the waste, and the glass has to stop splash where it matters. NZ Building Code clause E3 requires wet-area surfaces to be impervious and easy to clean. Whether you can have a level-entry floor depends on the subfloor and framing, and whether the work needs consent is a question for Auckland Council or a Licensed Building Practitioner.

Above: the wet-room bathroom we built under a sloping roof in Westmere. A shower box wouldn't fit under the angled ceiling, so that awkward corner became the wet area, closed off with custom-cut glass. Grey 600 x 600mm floor tiles sit against an Artisan moss-green gloss feature wall. The second photo is the ensuite from our Epsom character bungalow renovation, with a small wet area and a freestanding bath.

5. Shower with Glass Doors

Not ready for a full wet area? A tiled walk-in shower with clear glass gets you most of the way. Skip the raised-tray shower box with plastic panels: it dates a bathroom fast and boxes a small room in. Clear frameless or semi-frameless glass lets your eye travel the full width of the room.

Swapping a curtain or old cubicle for a single frameless panel is one of the cheaper changes on this list. Pick clear glass over frosted, and think about a fixed panel with an open end so no hinged door swings into the vanity.

Above: the bathroom from our rustic kitchen, laundry and bathroom renovation in Stanmore Bay, Whangaparāoa. The next photo shows how far a small bathroom opens up when it's planned well. Patterned floor tiles add an artisan touch, horizontal white wall tiles stretch the room, and the glass-door shower keeps it from feeling crammed.

6. Install a Tiled Shower in the L-Shaped Corner

Corners are prime space in a small bathroom, and they often end up holding a bin or a pot plant. A tiled corner shower with a glass door uses that L-shaped space and frees the rest of the room for a vanity, a toilet or even a small bath.

That's how we solved one of Todd's bathrooms in St Heliers. The room was small, he wanted a shower and a bath, so we built a compact tiled L-shaped shower into the corner and kept the rest of the floor for the bath and vanity. Keep the corner shower close to the existing plumbing if you can. Leaving water and waste on the walls they already use is the cheapest layout decision in a small bathroom.

Above, three of our small-bathroom layouts: a bathroom from our Avondale renovation for a three-generation family, where each bathroom serves a different part of the household; the St Heliers bathroom with its L-shaped shower and dark tiles, from the full renovation of Todd's family home in St Heliers; and a Rosedale bathroom with a framed glass corner shower and a chrome square rain head.

7. Pocket Doors

In a small bathroom everything is in the way of something else, and the door is usually the worst of it. A standard inward-swinging door takes roughly 0.7m² of floor and collides with the vanity or towel rail. A pocket door slides into a cavity in the wall, so that floor comes back for good, and a toilet or storage can sit beside the doorway.

The catch is the wall. It needs a clear cavity, free of pipes and wiring, and if it's load-bearing the change needs structural input from your builder or a Licensed Building Practitioner. Where the wall can't take a cavity, a barn-style sliding door on an exposed track is the next best thing.

Above: in this Ellerslie home the toilet and bathroom were two separate rooms. We took out the wall between them to make one ensuite, removed the hinged door and fitted a pocket door instead.

8. Floating Toilets

A wall-hung (floating) toilet does for the floor what a floating vanity does. The cistern hides inside the wall, so a wall-hung toilet frees floor space and makes a small bathroom look less cluttered. There's no pedestal to clean around, either.

Plan it early. The in-wall frame and cistern need a deeper wall or a built-out ledge, the waste may need to move, and servicing usually happens through the flush plate. In an older home with the toilet over a timber floor, moving the waste can be a bigger job than it looks. Get it priced at the design stage, not halfway through the build, and see what your own bathroom might cost with our bathroom renovation calculator before you commit to moving anything.

9. Create an Illusion of Height for Low-Ceiling Bathrooms

A low ceiling calls for colour and tile direction that lift the eye. Tile or paint the lower half of the wall in a darker colour and the upper half in a lighter one, and the ceiling appears further away. The dark band grounds the room, and the light top half gives it more depth than one colour all the way up.

Vertical tiles help too. A subway or finger tile laid vertically draws the eye up, especially if it runs right to the ceiling in the shower. Keep the ceiling clear with recessed downlights rather than a pendant.

10. Use the Same Tiles on Your Walls and Floors

Using the same tile, colour and texture on the floor and walls blurs the edges of the room, so the eye doesn't stop where the floor meets the wall. Large 600 x 600mm or 600 x 900mm tiles work well here because the grout lines can carry straight on up the wall.

Check the tile is rated for floors as well as walls, and match the grout to the tile so the lines fade. The small guest bathroom pictured below was done exactly this way: same tiles on floor and walls, a new vanity, a small corner shower and a toilet.

11. Open Shelving, Ledges and Ladder Shelves

Open shelves give a small bathroom storage without the boxed-in feel of a bulky cabinet. Style them with baskets for toiletries, a plant or rolled towels, and keep them out of the shower spray. Go up rather than out. Tall open shelving above the toilet uses wall space that otherwise does nothing.

Ledges are the slim version: a narrow shelf running the length of the bathroom, often where a wall-hung toilet frame already pushes the wall out. Handy for soap, a candle or a few decorative pieces. A timber-look ledge adds warmth to a contemporary or cottage-style room, as long as it's sealed against moisture.

Ladder shelves lean against the wall, use vertical space and hold towels and baskets. They don't need fixing into tiles, so they suit a rental or a bathroom you aren't renovating yet. Pair one with a shower niche (idea 14) and a mirrored cabinet (idea 1) and almost nothing has to live on the floor.

12. Colour Scheme for Your Walls and Floors

Light walls are the simplest way to open a small bathroom up, because they reflect light. Light doesn't have to mean plain white subway tiles. A white tile with a subtle pattern on one feature wall adds interest without making the walls busy.

Dark floors work too. A dark floor tile with light walls grounds the room and hides everyday wear, which is why it suits a busy family bathroom. Keep most fixtures out of black and charcoal so the room doesn't close in. Strong colour works best used once: one feature wall looks deliberate, three look busy.

More of our bathrooms with dark floors and light walls: the Papatoetoe family bathroom, with dark charcoal floor tiles, a light stone-look tile band and white-painted walls; the Westmere wet room, with grey 600 x 600mm floor tiles, white subway tiles and the green feature wall; and the Greenlane ensuite, with ALES Dark Grey Lappato 600 x 600mm floor tiles from The Tile Depot.

13. Use High-Gloss Paint to Reflect Light

Glossier walls bounce more light around, so a small room feels brighter and bigger. Pair semi-gloss or gloss walls with matte fixtures and floor tiles so the room doesn't look clinical. Use a bathroom paint that handles steam and resists mould.

Paint can't fix a room with no light or air, though. Plan downlights over the shower and vanity, plus light at the mirror. If there's no openable window, the Building Code requires an extractor fan, and in Auckland's humid climate a small bathroom without airflow grows mould fast. A skylight brings daylight into a windowless bathroom without using wall space; check with Auckland Council or a Licensed Building Practitioner whether the roof work needs consent.

14. Add a Shower Niche

The shower is where clutter builds up fastest. A shower niche is a recessed shelf built into the shower wall, so bottles sit flush instead of on the floor or a hanging caddy. Tile it in small mosaic or stone to make it a feature, or line it with the main wall tile so it disappears.

Plan it before the wall is lined. The niche has to sit between studs or have the framing adjusted, be waterproofed as carefully as the rest of the shower, and have a slight fall so water doesn't pool. Keep it off an exterior wall if you can, so it doesn't eat into the insulation, and size it for the tallest bottle you buy.

Above: the shower niche we built in the upstairs bathroom of a deck and bathroom renovation in Cockle Bay, finished in small stone tiles so it draws the eye. The same bathroom uses custom-built frameless shower glass to open up its compact footprint.

15. Use an Oval Freestanding Bathtub

In a very small bathroom you often can't fit both a shower and a bath. If a bath is non-negotiable, an oval freestanding bath feels more open than a rectangular built-in one, because you can see floor around it. Length matters as much as shape. The usual assumption is a 1700mm bath, but shorter ones are sold in NZ, and dropping to a 1520mm bath frees up roughly 180mm, which can be the difference between a door that clears the bath and one that doesn't.

A freestanding bath is a bigger plumbing job, because the waste and mixer have to come up in exactly the right spot. That's straightforward inside a full renovation and awkward as a later add-on.

Above: the oval freestanding bath in the ensuite of our Epsom character bungalow renovation, where we updated the bathrooms without fighting the character of the house.

Two Small Bathroom Renovations Worth a Closer Look

Westmere, Central Auckland. In this full strip-out, the low area under the roof became the wet area. The client wanted warm rather than clinical, so the room runs on matte gold tapware, dark tiles and that green wall.

The green feature wall was the brave call on this one. People hesitate over a strong colour in a bathroom, but paired with the dark tile and the gold it settles the whole room down rather than shouting. That's the difference between rustic and busy.
— Kevin Yang, Managing Director, Superior Renovations

St Heliers, Eastern Bays. Todd's family bought a home with three dated, leaking bathrooms. We stripped all three back, fixed the leaks and the mould behind them, and rebuilt them with large floor tiles, smaller subway wall tiles, a corner shower, a freestanding bath and wooden floating vanities, plus black tapware and LED strips in front of the mirrors. In one, a wall came out to turn a bathroom into an ensuite.

Small Bathroom Ideas: Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best very small bathroom ideas in NZ?

Free the floor first: a floating vanity, a wall-hung toilet, a frameless glass shower panel and a sliding or pocket door. Then add light with a large mirror, light walls and large-format tiles. In a very small NZ bathroom, sort the ventilation before anything else, because Auckland's humidity punishes a room without airflow.

How do you make a small bathroom look bigger?

Keep the floor line unbroken and bounce light around. Large tiles with few grout lines, the same tile on floor and walls, a generous mirror, clear glass instead of a shower box and fixtures lifted off the floor all make a small bathroom read larger.

How much does a small bathroom renovation cost in Auckland?

Our small bathroom guide puts a budget refresh (new tapware and vanity, paint, minor tiling, same layout) at about $8,000 to $15,000, and a mid-range full strip-out in the same footprint at $25,000 to $35,000. Moving plumbing, adding a wet area or choosing premium fittings pushes it higher, which is why the layout decisions in this list matter as much as the finishes.

Can you fit a bath and a shower in a small bathroom?

Often, with the right layout. A tiled corner shower beside a short bath works in plenty of small rooms, and a bath under 1700mm frees length for the door and vanity. Where there's no room for both, a shower over the bath keeps a bath in the house without needing a separate shower zone.

Every idea here is one we've built in a real Auckland bathroom, and the best small bathroom designs usually combine four or five of them, not all fifteen. To see how we plan and build small bathrooms across Auckland, head to superiorrenovations.co.nz, or come and look at tiles, vanities and tapware at our showroom, 16B Link Drive, Wairau Valley. Book a free consultation and bring a photo of your small bathroom taken from the doorway, and our design team will tell you which of these ideas your room can take.