You’ve got a small bathroom? Well, you’re not alone: many houses have tiny 5 x 8” bathrooms but it doesn’t mean you should experience claustrophobia every time you stay there. How to visually enlarge the space of a small bathroom and make it seem larger than it is? Our lifehacks are here to help you out.

When you arrange everything in a small bathroom, your main goals are:

• visually expand the space;
• pick up furniture and appliances that will fit the room;
• arrange storage and everything else in the most convenient manner.

Whether you live alone or with a family, there must be a plenty of stuff to place in a tiny bathroom starting from towels and finishing by endless cream bottles.

Find a place for everything you need. If you arrange things in a way that is convenient for you, you will enjoy spending time in your tiny bathroom. There’s no need to put everything in one big box to save space – you will have to fiddle with the pile of stuff to find things. Use boxes, shelves, lockers, etc. If possible, make open niches – it’s okay for your personal items to stay in sight. When each thing has its place, you don’t have to waste time searching for it.

A few more storage recommendations:

• Do not buy cleaners and detergents for the future use. In a small bathroom, they only clutter up cabinets and shelves, taking away space from the items you really need.
• Use hooks, magnetic strips, or mobile shelves for your possessions. Do not sacrifice personal amenities even if a bathroom will seem to be a bit cluttered.
• Instead of hanging a regular mirror above the sink, you can hang a compact mirror cabinet where to put cosmetics, perfumes and all sorts of other little things that should always be at hand.
• Under the sink, you can arrange a cabinet, install drawers or put a soft laundry basket in it, and hang another cupboard or open shelves over the toilet.

5. Use compact furniture

Every inch in your small bathroom should be functional. Shelves on the walls, cabinets, drawers, corner modules, hooks – everything should serve the purpose of organizing space properly. The best option is to order small furniture. 

Mini plumbing is the smartest solution for small bathrooms: you can find compact sinks and toilets, and even bathtubs.

If you cannot fit the entire bath, turn one corner of your room into shower space. Tiny bathrooms with shower look very stylish and stay convenient. You just need to single out this zone correctly.

If there are no more opportunities for expanding the bathroom, but you want to add comfort and coziness, use tried and tested approaches. Hang a sink and a curbstone on a wall, and install a hanging toilet if possible. Organize a small niche for the legs at the bottom of the bathtub so that it would be convenient to approach it.

6. Select the right color

The right color is the key to success. For a small space to look larger, you should choose something light & bright. It’s highly recommended to select white color or light shades for the ceiling, doors and walls.

For the interior not to look too monotonous, you can add bright accents: multi-colored towels, a beautiful curtain for the bathroom, live plants or paintings on the wall. Such details are often used in Scandinavian countries. Ornaments on the floor are one of the main small bath remodel trends 2019: choose tile with some interesting pattern and let it attract attention. Avoid garish colors, otherwise all your efforts will go down the drain.

• Do not use a dark color as a basic one. Of course, modern wood imitation tiles and dark loft colors are very popular, but they will devour the space in room. You won’t be able to save the situation by using more light – dark stays dark. If you really like black, brown, or any other gloom color, use it for making accents only.
• Have a lot of stuff on shelves? Avoid decorations. If you need to choose between a bottle of shampoo and vase – place the first thing in your niches and open shelves. Yes, it might be not aesthetic, but you don’t want to compromise convenience, do you?
• Say NO to very large tiles. If you use tiles over 15 x 15 inches, you will disturb the proportions in your bathroom. Opt for hexagon tiles – they look great and render a lot of design opportunities.

Every homeowner wants to maximize the return-on-investment they get out of their bathroom remodel. There’s a right way to do this—including limiting the project’s scope, finding good deals, and keeping parts of your existing bathroom—and there’s a wrong way. Too often, homeowners who want a luxury bathroom at the lowest-possible cost cut corners in one of two areas:

• They hire the cheapest labor, regardless of qu0alifications, experience working on remodels, or general trustworthiness.
• They choose the cheapest materials—tile, countertop, cabinets, fixtures, and more—regardless of longevity, quality, or durability.

Doing either of these things can save you money on your upfront project costs, but they can also lead to disaster down the road. Unqualified plumbers and remodelers may make “rookie” mistakes or, copying your lead, take cost-saving shortcuts that have a negative impact on how the bathroom turns out. With low-grade, cheap materials, your new bathroom just isn’t built to last, and will likely start falling apart the day you start using it.

Worst-case scenario, the negligence or faulty workmanship of an inexperienced plumber may lead to disaster, such as a leaking pipe, an improperly sloped shower floor, or any other number of plumbing and remodeling errors. Then, you’re stuck paying for rework, pushing your project completion date out and potentially ballooning your remodeling costs past what you would have spent had you just hired experienced, qualified people in the first place.

Incorrect, rushed measurements

If you are doing any of your own remodeling work, be sure to pay extra attention to any measurements you take. Verify, and then reverify, that your measurements are correct. Many plumbing and remodeling mistakes occur because of incorrect measurements. When you are fitting pipes together or laying tile, even a fraction of an inch matters. Professional remodelers know the importance of accurate measurements, which is just another reason that you should always work with a certified and locally trusted contractor on your project.

Using the wrong tools

One of the best reasons to work with a professional is that they already come equipped with the tools of the trade. Many aspects of a bathroom remodel—from removing and laying tile to sloping a shower drain—require specialized tools that, as a homeowner, you may only need once. Of course, where the trouble often starts is when people try to substitute one tool for another they already have in their garage. This can lead to damaged materials, shoddy installation, or things just being flat-out broken.

From improper electrical work to mismatched bathroom vanities, there’s a lot that can go wrong with your bathroom remodel. Our advice? It’s always a good idea to work with a professional plumber and remodeler when redoing your bathroom. For more information on remodeling bathrooms and even more mistakes to avoid, be sure to check out this new infographic from the team at ABC Cooling, Heating Plumbing in Hayward, CA:

When it comes to giving your San Diego kitchen surfaces a new coat, the first question to pop in the mind is “what kind of paint to use on kitchen cabinets?” Choosing the right paint for your cabinetry is half the battle because kitchen cabinets are not made equal, but they are darn versatile.

Your kitchen leads a very active lifestyle, hence, painting and finishing materials must be of top-quality and resistant to continuous vapor, moisture, condensation, and temperature extremes. At the same time, your kitchen is a facility where you keep foodstuff and cook meals, which means finishes here must fully correspond to the safety and hygiene standards.

When you scour the selection of paints for your kitchen cabinets in San Diego, you should pay attention to the composition, water resistance, the coverage rate, drying velocity, toxicity, and, of course, the desired color.

There is no clear answer to “What kind of paint to use on kitchen cabinets?” because every paint has its advantages and disadvantages. Let’s speak about the most popular paints for kitchen cabinets in San Diego.

• Oily paints are resistant to damp and vapor, effectively tolerate temperature changes, and protect the surface from corrosion and mold. However, such paints have a viscous structure, which means they are difficult to apply and tend to develop streaks, pimples, and light spots during the application. Also, oily paints take longer to dry up and emit very unpleasant odor all the while. At the same time, oil paints can be applied to virtually any material including wood, metal, and plastic.
• Acrylic paints are eco-friendly and safe solutions for cabinetry refinement. However, acrylic paints will gradually fade with every cleaning, which will eventually end up with a necessity to repaint your cabinets.
• Alkyd enamels boast an excellent covering power. They are also safe, quick to dry up, and indelible. Such paint will withstand the test of constant steam, condensate, soot, and temperature shifts. However, a rookie DIYer will have lots of troubles if applying alkyd enamel with a brush or a paddle roller as this finish is a fairly tough paint. If you are going to cover kitchen cabinets with such enamel, opt for aerosol sprays – they allow for achieving the even coating without much sweat.

Modern paints for kitchen cabinets run the gamut of dyes and overtones, and it is not a big deal if you cannot find the one to please your exquisite preferences – you can just mix the colors to get a coveted hint but make sure the resulting coloration harmonizes with an overall style and enhances your kitchen’s visual performance.

The most popular option with San Diego owners is neutral paints, which include all shades of beige, brown, gray, and white. These colors are ideal for making dramatic contrasts and emphasizing the owner’s peculiar taste.

The most common and effective color contrast is when upper cabinets are painted in light colors while lower – in darker. This combination works more for classic interiors. Remember that mixing only dark or only light dyes is not a good idea; otherwise, the cabinets will blur together and lose all their charms.

Do not be shy of adding bright splashes to your kitchen cabinets in San Diego. So, black elements can be combined with red, light green, mint, pink or beige; white – with blue, lilac, or golden; beige hues go well with red, while lilac is in its best when coupled with coffee or yellow colors.

But do not rely exclusively on your fantasy when choosing the color palette for your kitchen – the result may turn out ridiculous – ask a professional kitchen painter to elaborate a winning color scheme for your old cabinetry that will correspond both to the kitchen design and your fancy taste.

Do you love spending time in your San Diego kitchen? Is the kitchen your main source of inspiration for everyday deeds? Does your kitchen steal WOWs from the lips of everyone who is seeing it for the first time? If you have answered NO to any of these questions, you desperately need a kitchen remodel. And this is where your major headache starts: how to find the best kitchen remodel contractor near me in San Diego? Of course, you may google this inquiry, but unless you do not know how to identify a five-star construction and repair company, your online search may come to naught. Avail yourself of these simple guidelines on how to find a very able and congenial kitchen remodeling contractor that is also close to where you live in the San Diego area.

When looking for a trustworthy kitchen remodel near me, you should understand that a good worker never sits idle. It means that if a contractor is really nice in everything that goes, they are super busy and are tackling multiple home remodel projects at once. So, your first task is to make sure that the remodeler of your interest has a large team to execute your kitchen project without prevarication or delays.

A good remodeling company in San Diego must consist of not only consultants, builders, and finishers, but include licensed and well-experienced architects, designers, cabinetmakers, plumbers, electricians, and all sorts of other technicians and managers in their staff, giving you peace of mind that your project will be executed not only excellently but also in full compliance with city codes.

When it comes to a kitchen remodel, we always want the project to be ultimate in service, price, and guarantee. In other words, we want it to be performed by the best and brightest professionals. But discovering them in the ocean of San Diego contractors is stressful and exhaustive because a rich selection never helps decision-making but only complicates it.

So your hunt for a tip-top kitchen remodeling contractor close to you in San Diego should start with figuring out which kitchen designs you admire and which you dislike. Pinterest or Instagram images are bed helpers in this case because all these pictures were taken by strange people from a world away and have nothing to do with you. No, you need a concrete answer to your question: how to find the best kitchen remodeling company near me in San Diego?

Superior customer care is another attribute of a decent remodeling company in San Diego. A reputation-conscious contractor does its utmost to please a customer, no matter it is existing or prospective. They have lots of communication channels, from phone and Skype to live online reps in social networks and popular messengers. The most advanced ones even have own mobile apps for even better engagement with the audience.

Remodeling companies, like any other businesses, must evolve to keep pace with the time and meet the ever-increasing demands of tech-savvy clients. Make sure the San Diego contractor you would like to go with has not only a resourceful design crew but also a deep knowledge of modern fixtures and top-rated home appliances. To showcase their competence, a great kitchen contractor will not limit itself with a portfolio on their website but also have an in-house showroom demonstrating sophisticated equipment and machinery they can easily install in your kitchen.
A top-tier remodeler is not only that who offers you the most beneficial color palette for your kitchen cabinetry but that who can boost your kitchen’s functionality and improve traffic through smart architectural plans, spacing decisions or layout redesigns. To make things much clearer, the finest remodeling company will even create a 3D virtual presentation of a future remodel, giving the customer a precise vision of what the end result will look like.

The first wrong step most newbies take in the minefield of home refurbishment is the neglect to give the property a sober estimation. Your wiring, plumbing, and insulation systems might be in a very poor condition with you never guessing about existing problems. Such unawareness may cost you too much money and bring lots of grief later on.

Whether your home remodeling project is small or grandiose, never initiate it without a verdict by a licensed home inspector. Take your time to find a decent real estate inspection service that will examine the bones of your house and detect major issues with your roof, basement, structure and all communications systems.