While the bathroom isn't usually the ideal place to hang heirloom art and pricey pieces, it is the ideal spot to experiment with things like thrift store pieces or wild styles that you like but might not want to devote to wallspace elsewhere. Like hallways, closets, and other small spaces where you're not likely to be spending the majority of your home time, bathrooms are great places to go bold.
1. A casual display or inspiration board style installation of art takes the focus off a lackluster bathroom, and adds a little whimsy. Annemarie Buckley's bathroom, featured on Poppytalk, is a happy extension of the colorful and laid back style permeating the rest of her Vermont home.
2. Vintage seascapes play up the nostalgic vibe in Alex's Granny Chic apartment.
3. & 4. Designer Steven Gambrel is a master of adding drama to any space, bathrooms included. In place of wallpaper, book pages pasted to the wall establish an unexpected and playful tone, while a salon style display of framed pictures gives a bathroom art gallery status. Via Elle Decor.
5. Old photographs lend a little old world glamor to the bath designed by Gary Spain.
Images: As credited above.
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I always have art in my bathrooms too. I can't help but think of the "naked toilet paper" commercial when looking at the "naked" toilet paper rolls in this picture!
I love adding art to the bathroom! It's not always super "artsy," but having something for visual interest helps a ton!
The bathroom my sister and I designed (for our mom's house) has a GREAT shoreline print of a very rocky shore - it's not the typical shore print at all. It's supplemented with some small pieces of vintage maps.
My current bathroom has a lot of framed magazine pictures from scuba diving magazines: the adult interpretation of the little kid bathroom, since I dive and it's not the typical presentation, it's surprisingly sophisticated.
Lots of art in the bathroom, and I'm working on adding more. The bathroom is usually neglected, and I'm trying to avoid that now.
LOVE that first photo.
I have a couple of photo tiles from a local gallery hanging on my bathroom wall. You can see them here. I plan on buying a couple more, preferably from that same photographer, and creating a little symmetrical grouping. They add some visual interest to the otherwise bare walls and, being tiles, are completely resistant to moisture.
I've always loved art in the bathroom, but I've grown a little afraid of it after seeing it go awry in a friend's apartment. He's not the cleanest guy in the world (I guess 25 year old law students don't have toilet brushes on the brain), and I noticed that, after a year of being closed up in his small bathroom, a small framed poster had started to grow a pretty gnarly mold. :(
Now I just go sparingly on the framed stuff (anything that will trap heat and moisture) and think in terms of sculptural or fabric...
@Zhahira I'm also afraid to put art in the bathroom because of moisture and mold. In the past I've used the bathroom for displaying non-paper-based things like collections of china plates or silver platters hung on the wall. You could also hang anything that would be appropriate as garden fence art - wrought iron sculptures, tiles. the bathroom is also a good place for unexpected wall decals.
When my ex was a kid, whenever he came home with some new piece of artwork, his parents would say, "We'lll hang it in the bathroom." through the years, that was their joke whenever anyone gave them some piece of art that they thought was ugly: "Oh, thank you, we'lll hang it in the bathroom."
I don't have much wall space in mine, but I always have art in there. Right now, it's a vintage poster from a Picasso exhibit at a museum in Portugal. I got it for $10 on eBay and love it!
ahhh cool idea I love the first photo the best....great way to cover up my ugly painted paneling...I'm totally going to do this!
My grandfather, a retired security guard and self-taught folk artist (though he doesn't call himself a folk artist - he just "makes weird things out of what he has lying around the house"), has a small bathroom about the size of a train restroom filled with art in his downstairs. He's covered every inch of wall with art (vintage naked lady pictures from the turn of the 20th century, kodachrome postcards from Yosemite, Jesus painted on a glossy piece of bark, and a sh*ton more). It is magical. The rest of his house is covered in art both made and found, too, so the bathroom is just an extension of it. I love it. I think it's at the very core of our human existence to fill our spaces with what we love.
I have old license plates and a huge metal "Stop" sign hanging up in my bathroom.
"Hold on -- I'll be art in a minute!"