10 Spa-Like Bathroom Remodel Ideas, Whether You Have $500 to Spend or $25,000

Where there’s a will to paint over shower tile, there’s a way.
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kids in indoor-outdoor tub

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You haven’t heard what happiness sounds like until you listen to someone describing what it’s like to use their newly remodeled bathroom. “Every time I walk in, I feel like I’m in a dream,” a DIYer once told us. “There’s this peaceful moment when you walk in. Like: Oh, this makes sense!” described another. For some, creating the ultimate sanctuary is the goal; for others, it’s building a space that is easy to keep clean and organized. We’ve seen homeowners and designers go above and beyond to make their bathrooms special, whether that’s searching high and low for a transparent resin tub or installing a towel warmer to make bath time with a baby a little more pleasant. No matter how dated or quirky your bathroom is to begin with, the 10 bathroom remodel ideas ahead will get you one step closer to that pure-bliss feeling. 

Save a Sad Shower-Tub Combo

gray bathroom
Before | Photography Courtesy of Susan Nwankpa Gillespie

Tubs are practical on so many levels, especially if you have little ones in the house. But when combined with a shower, the result often comes out looking like the “before” scenario above: minuscule and dingy. Investing in a graphic tile surround and a deep soaking tub can change all that. In this Los Angeles home, designer and architect Susan Nwankpa Gillespie covered the interior shower walls with a combination of two Zia Tile hues (Rouge and Casablanca) and clad the facade in amber zellige tile

Carve Out a “Shower Room”

dated tub next to a shower
Before | Photography Courtesy of Anastasia Casey

If a tub is just not your jam (or, like in Anastasia Casey’s case, it takes 40 minutes to fill up), use it as an opportunity to expand your shower zone. The Identité Collective founder built off the pipes that were already there and added a second showerhead by the glass-block window (where the tub used to be), as well as a wand, which comes in handy when the dog needs a scrub-down. 

Paint Over Tile If You Don’t Have the Funds to Replace It…

gray bathroom
Before | Photography by Hannah Drakeford

Think of ugly, large-format tile as a blank canvas. At least, that’s what British designer Hannah Drakeford saw when she decided to apply two coats of V33 Renovation Floor and Stair Paint to her floor tile, laminate countertops, shower screen metalwork, and radiator. She then made it waterproof by adding one coat of Zinsser Bullseye 123

dated bathroom
Before | Photography by Nicole Christopher

DIYer Nicole Christopher took a similar approach in her tiny Vermont bathroom by using Benjamin Moore’s Atrium White inside the shower in the brand’s Bath and Spa finish and Vintage Vogue green for the paneling and built-ins surrounding it. Her whole project rang in under $500. 

…Or Skim Coat Over It

orange shower tile
Before | Photography Courtesy of Leanne Ford

Meet Leanne Ford’s quick fix for a dated bathroom. The DIY relies on SureCrete, a type of cement-based overlay, which can be applied directly onto an existing surface and made waterproof with a concrete sealer.

Push Your Vanity to the Limits

pedestal vanity and black toilet
Before | Photography Courtesy of Alex Boudreau and Hayley Cavagnolo

The pedestal sink was a strong giveaway to designers Alex Boudreau and Hayley Cavagnolo that this kids’ bathroom used to be a powder room. To make up for the major lack of storage, they scrapped it for a double vanity with open shelves and lots of lower cabinets painted in a creamy white and buttery apricot combo.

Invest in an Addition 

dated bathroom with floral shower curtain
Before | Photography Courtesy of Best Practice Architecture

By shaving off part of this Seattle home’s kitchen, the architects at Best Practice Architecture gained a 30-square-foot micro bathroom addition that could accommodate a Japanese soaking tub, called an ofuro. It acts as a threshold between the interior and the deck, with a folding window wall opening up to vistas of the cherry and maple trees outside. 

Hide the Toilet

toilet with pony wall
Before | Photography Courtesy of Rachel Sloane Sherman.

The toilet used to be the focal point of this New Jersey bathroom, but now it’s tucked away in a proper water closet with a pocket door that’s framed with wide slabs of Calacatta Fantastico marble. 

Go Dark

corner shower
Before | Photography Courtesy of Anastasia Casey

In her new Tudor home, Casey designed a cavelike shower swathed in dark green soldier-stacked tile with matching grout. She insisted on a curbless layout so the experience of walking inside the cocooning area is 100 percent seamless. 

Finesse the Details 

wood sauna dor
Before | Photography Courtesy of Ome Dezin

Sometimes the best bathroom remodel ideas are the simplest. For this Spanish-style home, the trick was rounding out a vanity corner here, adding marble trim there, and spotlighting the existing sauna with a see-through door. 

Flip Your Tile Orientation 

metal shower enclosure
Before | Photography Courtesy of Natalie Myers

Natalie Myers of Veneer Designs ditched the two individual vanities in this main bathroom and turned them into one unit. Then she swapped the shower and tub placement to optimize the layout and ensure the most frequented spot was bathed in natural light to really achieve that zen feel. By switching the horizontal tile into a vertical format on the wall, the room appears larger than it really is.

Lydia Geisel Avatar

Lydia Geisel

Home Editor

Lydia Geisel has been on the editorial team at Domino since 2017. Today, she writes and edits home and renovation stories, including house tours, before and afters, and DIYs, and leads our design news coverage. She lives in New York City.