A clean, sexy bathroom renovation is all you need in your life right now.

Since it’s the place you spend the least amount of time – depending on your bowel movements, I suppose – it’s also the place you can decorate to the nines.

Instead of using “jarring patterns or throwing down serious cash on all marble everything,” to make your bathroom pop, Suzanne McGrath [above left] suggests using a tile, explains Architecture Digest:

Pretty sexy, isn’t it?

Well, that’s not just any tile you see; it’s a floor tile. On the walls:

See the 1×4 ceramic tiles plastered floor-to-ceiling in this guest bathroom, part of McGrath II’s impressive overhaul of a prewar apartment in New York City?

Yeah, those are technically for the floor. But it’s the tile’s design that really mattered to the decorating duo.

“In a small room like this, we thought, how can we make this more interesting? Because if we just paint it, it’s going to be so boring, and you don’t really want to wallpaper a heavily used bathroom,” McGrath explains.

Talk about turning design on its head. Here’s the know-how:

“For smaller bathroom walls, we like to specify ceramic tiles that are small in size,” says McGrath—they like 1×4 and 2×6 styles, specifically. There’s also porcelain to consider, which is even less expensive.

And to make the decision that much easier, floor tiles are pre-cut and relatively easy to install.

In the end, covering the guest bathroom walls in tile ended up costing about the same as smoothing, prepping, painting, and waterproofing the walls would have, but it has double the impact.

McGrath adds, “Tile is much lower maintenance than painted walls. It is compatible with moisture, whereas sometimes a painted finish will develop a film on it over time from excess moisture.” We predict powder rooms everywhere are going to have some serious design competition.

How’s that for a weekend project?

#Bae will be so happy, and you could even add “experienced tiler” to your list of acquired skills if you do a good job.

[source:architecturaldigest]