030310-bathlux3.jpgWhen you live in a rental, your hands are tied when it comes to the bathroom. You have to live with what you got. But, as we saw the other day, when Laure rounded up some luxurious bathrooms from our house tours, luxury is obtainable. So, after we swooned, we took another look. Here are some ideas you can use in your "beyond hope" bathroom.
  1. Play with your walls: Whether it's wallpaper, stamp, or good ol' paint, punch up your walls.
  2. Add a piece of furniture: a small stool, an ottoman, a bench, a chest of drawers if you have the room.
  3. High quality towels and lots of them: We buy bath sheets and hand towels, which we use for company and for our hair. Stacks of them if you have the space -- a shelf above the door?, a basket of towels rolled up, hooks on the back of the door to hold them -- somehow, a plethora of good, fluffy, matching towels in a bathroom makes it feel opulent.
  4. Keep it clean, make it neat: here's the room where cleanliness really is next to godliness.
  5. Add a rug: Yes, it's probably time to invest in a new bathmat but that's not the kind of rug we're talking about. We mean a real rug.
  6. Candles: The good kind. And use them. Light them when you get home, take a bath or a shower by them. Somehow, a candle in the bathroom, even a flickering votive in a glass, makes your bathroom feel like something else.
  7. Plants or Flowers: Plants do wonderfully in the moist environment of a bathroom.
  8. A Way to Play Music: Because if you're gonna sing in the shower, you should have a band to back you up.
  9. Art: Nope, you don't want to put your prize Picasso lithograph in here but a framed photograph, a few art postcards, a collage would work just as well.
  10. A table lamp: Lighting in a rental bathroom can be the worst. After you change out your lightbulbs for something more flattering, consider adding a table lamp if you have the room. Somehow, it makes the room feel like a real room, and not just a utilitarian space.
  11. Frame your mirror: Consider adding a simple frame to a bathroom mirror using an actual frame, molding or paint one on with decorative paint.