How to elevate your bathroom with stylish accessories

The bathroom is your sanctuary, a haven that deserves devotion as a space that will take care of you, the more you take care of it. The right bathroom accessories personify this perfectly as final touches that can effortlessly enhance an environment. However, doing this successfully in practice can be trickier than it seems.

With expert insights from Craig McCredie, Director of Design Mode International, who has over 20 years of experience in the industry, we uncover and share some great tips on elevating your bathroom with high-quality accessories.

For those looking to create a sleek, sophisticated and contemporary bathroom environment, Scandinavian styling makes a strong case for itself. The style is characterised by clean lines, minimalist forms, neutral colours and a design emphasis on functionality — traits that are well-suited to the bathroom. 

As Craig explains, it is a style that has always been popular in Australia because of its balanced approach between form and function.

“The Scandinavian style, particularly from Denmark, has always been popular. They tend to be the leaders in design and have such a beautiful style. They design to solve a problem and see their products as a long-term investment, so there's always a lot of thought into what they're doing and why they're doing it.”

Elaborating on the first point, minimalism is a great philosophy to embrace when it comes to the bathroom. That is because the opposite of this, i.e. a cluttered bathroom, can feel busy and even a little chaotic — sentiments you should shy away from when attempting to create a calm and serene environment. 

An important part of minimalism is sticking to the essentials along with thinking about their size and how they work in the space — things that Craig has some helpful suggestions on. 

“You want to have nice, sleek, minimal pieces, and the two most important things are a toilet brush and a bin. Most toilet brushes will have a standard size, but the actual container can vary if you want a shorter or a longer handle. A bin comes down to your bathroom’s size and how many people are using it.”

Craig also shares some tips for those with smaller bathrooms. 

“For small spaces, you might also just have a soap pump and one container that would sit on the vanity and utilise cupboards to hold anything else. Cabinet mirrors are quite effective in a smaller bathroom because they help with storage without losing space.”

Another great styling tip is to think carefully about the visual harmony of your space and how all your features work together, as opposed to how items look in isolation. This is true, even for smaller furnishings like bathroom accessories, which can still draw the eye, especially in a bathrooms which tend to be predominantly white or neutral. 

Craig concedes that while some people with designer instincts can pull off a more eclectic, mix-and-match approach, getting it wrong can do more harm than good.

“With mixing and matching, you can easily make a mistake and lose your identity and original vision. In our collections, we have a variety of different styles and colours, but we generally still encourage people to choose two colourways and stick to the same shaped design. You don't want the accessories to be your highlight. You want them to be subtle most of the time.”

The idea of cohesion isn’t solely restricted to the inner space of the bathroom but can be thematic of the wider home and even the surrounding environment.

“The environment your home is in and the style of the home can be reflected in the accessories within the bathroom. If you live in a more woody and mountainous area, you might consider eucalyptus colours. If you're near the ocean, there are blues. For urban areas, you’ve got stainless and greys, and for traditional homes, there are colours like terracotta and peach. So the colours can flow all the way through the home.”

Some accessories aren’t as glamorous as others, but they still deserve just as much time and attention during selection. The toilet brush is a perfect example of this. It does a job, most people don’t want to even think about, so they don’t give them adequate time when making a decision, resulting in a choice that detracts from the space.  

As Craig mentioned earlier, it is one of the most important bathroom accessories to have, and one that homeowners should always seek quality in. 

“The toilet brush is probably one of the most important and hygienic items in the bathroom. But if you make the wrong choice and get one that hasn't been designed and doesn't handle the usage, it can end up being an experience that is very uncomfortable and unhygienic. It needs to be pretty robust, and it needs a heavy base so it doesn’t fall over. Not one that people like to purchase, but if you make the right choice, it will do the job and last a long time.”

Elevating your bathroom with accessories isn’t just about choosing well. It’s also about how you use the accessories you’ve bought, and specifically in this instance, how you place them. Again, it’s one of those things we perhaps take for granted, but it does require a fair bit of thought.

However, as Craig discusses, these small considerations can make a big difference.    

“You want your soap pump right near your tap so it's easy to use. You want to make sure that if you've got a pedal bin with a flip lid, it's not going to hit anything above. You want your toilet brush to be in an accessible spot, so it's not hindered by towel rails or toilet roll holders. So, there is a bit of a thought process on all those little elements.”

Another aspect to reflect on is your perspective on bathroom accessories. For many, they are an afterthought, especially for those preoccupied with bathroom renovation projects and the big-ticket furnishings and decisions which come with them. 

The failure to give time and value to bathroom accessories, however, is one of the main mistakes Craig sees in bathroom projects today. 

“I think some people feel the budget runs out once they've got to the end of a project and don't choose the right accessories to match the initial look, feel and ambience. This means they buy the wrong accessories that don't fit the final part of the bathroom design. Sometimes, there's not a lot of awareness from builders or architects on what accessories are needed to make it look really good, but hopefully we can help these people to see what's available.”

Finally, if you’ve bought into the holistic Scandinavian style and approach, taking a long-term view on the accessories you buy will be a key factor that helps you make your decisions. This long-term view also incorporates aspects like sustainability — an issue that is becoming increasingly important in the industry.

For bathroom accessories, sustainability isn’t just about the eco-friendliness of the material being used but the quality and robustness of the product, as well as the manufacturing standards, too. The longer a product lasts and the fewer faults with its manufacturing, the less it needs to be replaced, and it’s with full replacements that much of the environmental burden lies. 

Craig speaks to this passionately, as something that Design Mode International places in high regard. 

“We have a very low claim and fault rate. Less than 0.001% of the total products sold will have an issue. The other thing is we have spare parts available. We offer toilet head brushes for people to purchase rather than having to buy the whole product again. For soap pumps, we have the pump mechanism available. The availability of spare parts means that we can continue to create more longevity in the final product.”

As we said in our introduction, your bathroom is your sanctuary, and the more you look after it, the more it will look after you. As Craig sums up, your bathroom accessories are long-term investments that can certainly pay off in more ways than one. 

“Your bathroom is a long-term investment. You've put a lot of time and effort into creating this beautiful space, so don't get to the end of the journey and put something in that's not going to last and do the right job for you. Invest in the right product, and it will deliver you enjoyment, a beautiful look and something you can be proud of.”

Find out more about Design Mode International on ArchiPro