Small Bathroom Ideas That Come Off Again
Small bathroom ideas measured in inches: code clearances, a curved rod that adds up to 8 inches, over-toilet storage, door swing math and fan sizing.
Most small bathroom ideas promise a room that looks bigger. We care more about how a small room feels at the end of the day, because a bathroom with something on every surface is a hard place to unwind. These ideas clear real inches off the floor, over the tub and up the wall, so the tub becomes the calm center of the room again, and every one of them comes off on moving day.
Why a clear room is easier to unwind in
Researchers have looked at how the state of a home shows up in how we feel. In a 2016 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Catherine Roster of the University of New Mexico and Joseph Ferrari of DePaul University surveyed adults across the U.S. and Canada about their homes and their things. Clutter weakened people's sense of home as their own place, and it lowered their overall well-being.
At UCLA, Darby Saxbe and Rena Repetti had 60 working spouses give self-guided tours of their homes, then counted the words they used. Over the next three weekdays, wives who talked about clutter and unfinished projects reported their mood sinking as the day went on. Wives whose tours were full of restful words and nature words reported it lifting.
A small bathroom gets cluttered faster than any other room, because there's so little surface to begin with. So these small bathroom ideas aim for less on view, not just more storage: bottles off the tub ledge, towels off the floor, and a clear path to the water.
Small bathroom ideas start with three code numbers
The International Residential Code sets three small numbers for a bathroom. A toilet's centerline has to sit at least 15 inches from any wall, fixture or other obstacle beside it. There has to be at least 21 inches of clear floor in front of the toilet, the sink and the tub, and 24 inches in front of a shower entry. The NKBA's Bathroom Planning Guidelines list all three and recommend more wherever there's room: 18 inches beside the toilet and 30 inches in front of every fixture.
In a small bathroom, that strip in front of the fixtures is the floor we actually stand on, and anything parked there takes it. So the small bathroom ideas below stay out of it. They go over the tub, up the wall, above the toilet or on the back of the door.
More elbow room over the tub, no drill needed
A straight shower rod hangs the curtain right over the tub's edge. A curved rod bows it out over the floor at shoulder height, where nobody's standing during a bath anyway.
Moen's spec sheet for its adjustable curved rod shows it bowing out 5 1/4 inches at the shortest 54 inch setting and 7 7/16 inches at 72 inches. Kenney's No Tools curved rod fits openings from 57 to 72 inches and lists 8 inches of extra space for the steel version and 6 for the aluminum one. It holds up to 15 pounds and goes up with no tools. The screw-in hardware in the box is optional, so it comes back down just as easily.
For the bottles that end up lined along the tub ledge, a corner tension pole runs from the ledge to the ceiling. Zenna Home's corner pole caddy adjusts from 60 to 97 inches, needs no tools, and fits four shelves into a footprint about 11 1/2 inches wide and 8 deep.
Storage that goes up instead of out
The wall above the toilet is floor-to-ceiling space the 21 inch rule never touches. When the toilet sits between two walls, the 15 inch rule means that gap is at least 30 inches wide.
RiverRidge Home's Somerset spacesaver is built for exactly that spot. It's 27 3/8 inches wide and 7 7/8 inches deep, stands over the toilet with 33 inches of clearance underneath, and has shelves behind two doors plus an open shelf. Its legs stand beside the toilet, so the 21 inches in front stays clear. The listing says it can be anchored to the wall for stability, which means screws, so in a rental that's worth checking against the lease first. Our renter friendly bathroom guide covers what usually needs a landlord's okay.
The NKBA's access standard puts frequently used storage between 15 and 48 inches off the floor, so on a unit 64 inches tall the top shelf gets the spare towels.
The door and the floor it sweeps
NKBA allows a bathroom door as narrow as 24 inches when an existing room can't take a wider one, and even that one sweeps a quarter circle of about 3.1 square feet. The Home Ventilating Institute's worked example of a small bathroom is 8 by 5 feet, 40 square feet in all. A 24 inch door claims close to 8% of that floor, and a 30 inch door about 12%.
Nothing can live inside that arc, but the back of the door can. An over-the-door hook rack holds a robe and a towel in space the door already uses, and it lifts straight off again. The gap at the bottom should stay open, though. HVI says bathroom doors need at least 3/4 inch of clearance to the floor so the fan can pull replacement air in, so a draft stopper or a thick mat jammed under the door works against the fan.
Steam and plugs in a small room
An 8 by 5 bathroom with an 8 foot ceiling holds about 320 cubic feet of air. HVI sizes fans for bathrooms under 100 square feet at 1 cfm per square foot, roughly eight air changes an hour, which comes to 40 cfm for that room. The code minimum is 50 cfm, and the Department of Energy's Building America guide notes that ENERGY STAR recommends a fan rated at 70 cfm or more to deliver that once installed. The guide also recommends leaving the fan on for an hour after a shower, on a timer switch, and choosing one rated at 3 sones or less.
A small room also puts every outlet near the tub. Per the code sections in the NKBA guidelines, no receptacle can go in or directly over a tub or shower, and every bathroom receptacle needs GFCI protection, including any within 6 feet of the tub's outside edge. So the speaker plugs into the outlet by the sink, and nothing with a cord sits on the tub ledge. Light gets its own piece in our bathroom lighting ideas.
Fitting a soak into a small bathroom
None of these small bathroom ideas asks for a bigger room. A tub, a towel on the back of the door and a fan on its timer are all a soak needs, whether it lasts as little as 15 minutes or as long as we like.
We're Flewd, and we make stresscare soaks for nights in a bathroom like this, when the tub is the biggest thing in the room and the best seat in the house. Each one is formulated with concentrated magnesium chloride, nootropics, aminos and vitamins, then sealed into a single-bath pouch, so there's no open jar of anything fighting for the shelf over the toilet.
In a 2010 study from Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan, researchers asked 617 adults at routine medical checkups how often they soaked in a bathtub. The ones who soaked seven or more times a week reported better self-rated health and better sleep quality than the ones who soaked less often.
Our soaks come scented or fragrance-free. The rest of the evening around the tub is in our stresscare night at home.
Questions we get asked
How much space does a toilet need in a small bathroom?
The International Residential Code asks for at least 15 inches from the toilet's centerline to anything beside it and 21 inches of clear floor in front. The NKBA recommends 18 and 30 inches where the room allows.
What size fan does a small bathroom need?
HVI recommends 1 cfm per square foot for bathrooms under 100 square feet, and the code minimum is 50 cfm. ENERGY STAR suggests one rated at 70 cfm or more.
Is a warm bath okay for everyone?
Anyone who's pregnant, taking medication or managing a health condition should check with a doctor before starting a new soaking routine. On the plumbing side, the code caps hot water delivered to a bathtub at 120°F.
