10 Bathroom Trends for 2026 That Take the Design of This Space Everywhere but to a Boring White Box
No longer the home's blandest spots, the best bathrooms of 2026 embrace a bold whimsy in their design that will make them your favorite rooms in the house
If you're not the boldest of decorators, some of 2026's biggest bathroom trends might cause you some consternation. These rooms are no longer being treated like functional white boxes, and the trends in the more forward-thinking luxury design projects are pushing them into new realms.
Think color, pattern, texture, yes, but the bathroom of 2026 also reflects the wider interior design trends of the year. It's about creating spaces that feel personal, unexpected, algorithm-defying, and that behave a little more like the other rooms in your house, not just a space to wash in.
Yes, of course, there's still room for you if you like to keep things simple, but even in the boldest of the projects that are setting bathroom trends for this year, you'll find the lessons in what to pick to keep your design feeling fresh and ahead of the curve.
Article continues below1. The Mood: Old World Cool
Designer Christian Bense wanted to take the period charm of this bathroom and update it for a modern sensibility.
There's something about being too concerned with cohesiveness that feels a little too 'try-hard' in interiors right now. Instead, the delight and surprise are found in the tension of contrast in interior design. The old with the new, the sleek with the fussy, the maximalist with the minimalist.
It's an idea that you can see manifested in this Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse's bathroom, re-imagined by interior designer Christian Bense. "That deep respect for the house, its history and foundations, informed our thinking and every design choice we made, but it didn’t restrict us from modernizing the home and injecting contemporary elements that felt authentic and befitting of this impressive property," he explains.
The warmth of the copper bath is contrasted by the cool blues of the wallpaper mural hiding the vanity, and echoing the home’s garden square setting. Handcrafted pearl-toned Zellige tiles help to create a scheme which Christian wanted to feel like a like a lived in room, rather than a functional space.
2. The Tile Trend: Color Blur
Each of these tiles is made to order, and no two are the same.
You might recognize the design of the tiles used by Madrid-based design studio Plutarco in this intriguing bathroom, tucked behind a beautiful burl wood vanity, but not necessarily know where they're from.
Well, they're the calling card of Dutch tile brand Palet, which specializes in this type of 'blurry' tile, created by using a CNC glazing machine, which sprays the tiles with the glaze.
"We’re inspired by systems rather than motifs: repetition, rhythm, and imperfection," the brand's managing partner, Niels Monsieur, told us. "The goal isn’t decoration, but creating surfaces that feel intentional and timeless."
It's a bathroom tile trend that often goes viral online, and has been used by some of the world's most dynamic decorators, with few to no other brands replicating the look these tiles achieve.
3. The Shape: Chunky Forms
"I like the idea of teasing ‘soft’ shapes from hard surfaces like timber and stone," Yasmine says. "They just need thick, rounded returns to have this appeal."
If you're considering silhouettes for bathtubs and basins, designer Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem of YSG Studio is a champion for chubby, playful shapes in the bathroom over stark, straight lines. "Chubby shapes have a naïve charm about them that woo with child-like appeal," the designer explains. "Balancing robustness with curvaceous cosiness makes this design style feel really inviting, as opposed to the restraint of sleeker silhouettes that tend to sacrifice practicality and comfort. In bathrooms, these rounded shapes make you feel held in a beautiful embrace, which is the mood these private spaces should embody."
"I like bringing the shape in via chunky bullnose-edges," Yasmine suggests, "from shelf profiles to the returns of counter surfaces. Plus, playing with scale via low-bearing heights that are wider than usual to really push the inviting comfort factor."
4. The Color Trend: Red
The unexpected nature of red in a bathroom is what makes it standout as a design trend for 2026.
If there was ever an overcorrection to the bland white bathroom, it might be the red color trend. I say overcorrection, as you sort of get the sense that red was never meant for the bathroom. It can be overstimulating, emotional — not the characteristics you want for your relaxing retreat. And yet, why does it feel so right for now?
The flip side is that this trend offers things we don't, traditionally, get from our bathrooms — warmth, intimacy, that sense of cocooning yourself. And with just the right shade, it feels luxurious and romantic in the evenings, and starts your day with energy in the morning.
"The most important thing with red as the color is the tone,’ says interior designer Roisin Lafferty. "Red can be too loud, and given it is within a home, the warmer tones are better at creating a more inviting atmosphere."
The fact that it's unusual to find red in a bathroom is perhaps why it translates as a bathroom color trend. That unexpectedness does have a design currency, which is hard to overlook.
5. The Shower Trend: Cave-Like Interiors
Wrapping showers in darker colors and dramatic finishes create a different sensorial experience.
That cocooning element is something we want to experience in our showers now, too. You might have the vision of showering in a light, bright, and airy space, but consider one that wraps you in dark and dramatic materials for a different appeal to your senses. Given you might be a nighttime showerer anyway, why waste this space on that demand for natural daylight?
This shower design by interior designer Jenny Luck, clad in Wanderlust Labradorite tiles by Minoli, feels almost cave-like, or like you're showering under a midnight sky.
"I wanted my clients to feel a sense of escapism in their main suite," says Jenny. "The wraparound tiling creates a cocooning effect, and the specific blue tones took us away to the skies and sea of the Côte d’Azur. I couldn’t think of a better place to emulate in this frequently used pocket of the home."
To add lighting, without sacrificing this enveloping feel, designers are also adding artificial light wells above, doubling down on this shower trend's almost subterranean feel.
6. The Bath Trend: Platform Baths
This platform helps to zone the bathroom, and make more of a design feature of a simple freestanding bathtub.
Image credit: Helen Cathcart. Design: Nash Baker Architects
Step-up baths bring better accessibility, as well as a standout design moment.
Image credit: Kristofer Johnsson. Design: Studio Lawahl
When it came to choosing a trend for bathtubs, I'd narrowed it down to two options. Built-in baths are, in most respects, the bigger bathroom trend than freestanding ones right now, but perhaps more interesting are the ways baths are being incorporated into the architecture. The choice, then, comes between sunken baths and platform baths.
The ease of installing the latter is one reason it wins out, but also for the variety in its design applications, and how it changes the dynamic of the room. In a project like the bathroom designed by Nash Baker Architects, pictured, the raised platform offers a practical solution. "The clients had a clear vision: they wanted both a large bath and a generous walk-in shower — features that typically demand a large amount of space," explains design director Ahmed Shawky. "By elevating the bath on a plinth within the shower area, we maximized spatial efficiency while creating a striking visual feature."
Another take on the trend, the 'step-up' bathtub, better integrates the bathroom into the space like a piece of furniture. It becomes less absolute: you're not just out of or in the bath, you can be around it. "Incorporating steps into a bath design is not just about accessibility — it’s about enhancing the overall experience of relaxation and indulgence," Louise Ashdown, head of design at West One Bathrooms, says.
7. The Layout: Alcoves
This retro design feature has had a return to popularity for its practical good looks.
Once abhorred and ripped out of 'dated' bathrooms, the idea of the alcove bath has had quite the comeback as a bathroom layout idea, both for its functional and its aesthetic value.
"Bath nooks and built-in baths are a favorite of mine, as they make the most awkward spaces become the most special," says Tiffany Duggan, founder of Studio Duggan, who designed the bathroom above. "This humbug-striped example was a smart solution to a spatial challenge. There wasn’t room for a separate bath and shower, so we created an alcove, then hung a shower curtain internally."
Aesthetically, this layout moves away from the bathroom as a series of 'placed' objects, instead looking to built-ins to make things feel both bespoke and intentional, reading as part of the architecture, rather than just something you picked out of a showroom's lookbook.
8. The Mirror Trend: Function First
Storage, lighting, and adjustable mirrors make this custom design a bathroom workhorse.
What you'll notice about the bathroom trends in this list so far is that they, by and large, aren't as obsessed with simple aesthetics as they are with how a bathroom feels to use. And that's the same for the bathroom mirror, arguably, I'd say, the most important part of the room to get right.
Form follows function when it comes to the mirror trends for 2026, and a set-up that means you're well-illuminated, whether naturally or artificially, and that allows you to get ready easily. Whether you can go custom with your bathroom mirror, or just incorporate a design that can flex, the perfect mirror really needs to meet its setting.
In this pretty pink bathroom, Alicia Meireles, creative director of Own London, designed a mirror that does it all. "There’s always the issue of how to light the face properly if you have a mirror cabinet,’ Alicia says. "So we created two recessed slots for lighting sandwiched by three openable cabinets." Extra storage, extra lighting, extra clever.
9. The Tap Trend: Living Finishes
"The client’s brief was to make the space feel 'less clinical, less hotel-like'," says designer Rachael Gowbridge. "It was all about softening things up from there."
Authenticity and story are ideas that have cropped up time and time again in our interior design and kitchen trend reports for 2026, so it's no surprise that so-called 'living finishes' are my choice for specifying bathroom taps and showers.
These are materials that are less treated, meaning they show wear, age gracefully, and have character that changes from when they're first installed. It can be hard to necessarily tell what you're signing up for, without spotting the exact material you've chosen in a real home, but part of the joy of these materials is that you get to witness them change.
If you're too much of a control freak for that, there are already antiqued finishes that, while not as authentic as the real thing, give you that lived-in look immediately and consistently.
10. The Basin Trend: Rock Solid
Basins and washstands in solid blocks of stone, or stone-effect materials, are grounding bathroom schemes in all the right ways.
Where statement basins were once a big design trend, right now, the most impressive styles incorporate the entire vanity in the same material, especially in natural stone, for a grand scale design that also feels calmly minimalist.
Melbourne interior designer Fiona Lynch is a master of using stone in her work, celebrating the materials’ innately beautiful patterns through big blocks of it on kitchen islands and, as shown here, bathroom vanities. This scheme is the perfect example of the bathroom trend, and sees Aquarzo and Smeraldo quartzite from Artedomus used to clad walls, floor, and vanity for a luxurious finish.
2026's bathroom trends are interesting in that, really, they call for more self-expression and less following cookie-cutter design ideas. Whether it's your choice of tile, a color, or even a layout for your bathroom, each of these recommendations for your next project wants you to ask the question before you begin: how can I adapt this idea to make it work for me and my space?
Small bathroom or big bathroom, ensuite or powder room, these trends need to speak to the mood you want to create and how you want to feel, more so than just a decorating trend for the sake of it.
