Hate Your Windowless Bathroom? 5 Smart Tips to Make It Less Dreary

Without fresh air or natural light, “it can feel like you’re in a dungeon,” said designer Christine Lin of Form & Field in San Francisco, where city-dwelling clients are often saddled with walled-in baths. Lauri Kleiman, a teacher in San Francisco, made do with her windowless loo for 16 years before finally seeking relief. “It felt claustrophobic and depressing,” she said. She turned to Emily Flaxman, of Flax Interiors in Berkeley, Calif., who banished the sadness with an airy design. Step one: papering the compact room’s four walls (and ceiling, too) with Cole & Son’s ethereal cloud-print Nuvolette wallpaper. “It really opened up the space and made the whole room feel lighter,” Flaxman said.

Laid low by your own lightless lav? Here, strategies from designers who’ve faced down the darkness.

1. Bring in Nature

“In a room with no windows it’s particularly important to do things inspired by nature,” said Flaxman. For her part, Lin relies on accents like a wood-framed mirror or Hinoki bath mat, which exudes a light cypress scent—subtle ways to connect your tiled cell to the organic world. Even simpler? For a pop of freshness, Josh and Jack Manes, a husband-and-wife design duo in Brooklyn, suggest finding a spot for a few sprigs of eucalyptus—which lasts for weeks and emits a clean, invigorating fragrance.

Because glass tricks the eye and can “expand” a sense of space, when dealing with the shower in a dim W.C., Jack Manes shuns shower curtains and engineers a clear partition. Reflective surfaces can also mimic windows. In a recent bath reno, Amanda “Birdy” Pierce of Birdsong Design in Augusta, Ga., used a playful arched wall cabinet with glass doors to reflect light. “It helps replace what’s lost by not having a window.”

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3. Reel in the Great White

Many homeowners assume the way to remedy a dark space is to use bright white everywhere—but some designers caution that a white-out can evoke a hospital. The trick to keeping things fresh, not clinical? Use a mix of whites, from milky to icy, says Pierce.
Lisa Mettis of Born and Bred Studio in London suggests a gutsy, counterintuitive move: Rather than running from it, lean into the darkness. In a petite powder room that Mettis designed underneath the staircase of a Victorian home (below), shadowy reads as dramatic thanks to a base of glossy bottle-green wainscoting and a riotous floor-to-ceiling swath of Hollyhocks wallpaper from House of Hackney. “All you see is flowers,” she said. “You forget all about the fact that there is no natural light.”

4. Just Breathe

A windowless full bath can turn swampy fast. To combat the effect, Flaxman amps up ventilation. For instance: While updating a 38-square-foot restroom in Palo Alto, Calif., she installed a doubly-powerful exhaust fan to ensure all humid air could escape.
For en suite layouts, Gretchen Murdock of Modtage Design in San Francisco sometimes aids airflow with large pocket doors. “Leaving them ajar allows you to pull in light and air from the adjacent space,” she said.

5. Light the Way

Without the luxury of sunlight, choose lighting as strategically as a president chooses his cabinet. One big no, say the Manes: Edison bulbs. “They’re terrible for bathrooms!” said Josh Manes. “[They] can be glaring and the exposed bulbs cast terrible shadows.” To soften the severity in a recent reno, the duo swapped out offending Edisons for a pair of Kelly Wearstler alabaster sconces. They diffuse light over a honed marble sink and its dramatic veining. The result: a dreamy, not at all dreary, vibe.