Sometimes the best way to update a room is to redo the paint job. In a bathroom, this rule still applies. Painting the walls and cabinets will freshen up any bathroom’s looks without needing to doing a full update that would cost you more time, energy, and money.

So how do you choose the perfect color for your bathroom? We will cover a few helpful tips when you are making this decision.

Color wheel

Surprisingly, a good first step is to begin by getting a color wheel and learning a little bit about them. Color wheels are very simple. The colors across from each other go together while colors next to each other don’t. This will help you decide on a color scheme for your bathroom - or any other room in the house, for that matter.

The rule of three

Choosing three colors is a simple yet excellent way to figure out a good bathroom color scheme. In general, these three colors should include one that is rich, one that is neutral, and one that acts as an accent. Theoretically you would paint 70% of the room with the light color, 20% of the room with the next lightest, and 10% of the room with the richest color.

Bathrooms can sometimes get by as an exception to this rule.  Since they often represent a place of calm and cleanliness, more than one neutral color - even three neutral colors - will work wonderfully.

Three times three

For each of the three colors you choose for your bathroom, make sure to use each one at least three times. This doesn’t always mean painting three different things - it can often be a towel color, a piece of furniture, or other accents.

Choose a mood

Before choosing the color scheme for your bathroom, you should decide on what kind of mood you would like it to convey. For instance, do you want your bathroom to be energizing or calming? If the answer is energizing, then you might want to go for two bright, contrasting colors in your color scheme. A bathroom with a calming mood, on the other hand, will have lots of lighter colors that were often inspired by nature, such as seafoam green, sky blue, or creamy whites.

Don’t fear the dark

Dark colors are okay for small bathrooms, too. Plenty of people shy away from them, but the contrast that comes with using a richer color makes for a lovely accent in your room. You should be a bit careful, of course, because choosing only dark colors in your color scheme might make a small room feel like a cave.

Match it with your other rooms

If you can’t decide on a color scheme, just take a look at the other rooms in your house. It’s a good idea to have the “themes” match up from room to room anyway, but sometimes this can be done in subtle ways. For instance, using your dining room’s accent color for your bathroom’s dominant color will keep the continuity but also distinguish it from the rest of the house. Genie Bath Systems has a lot of different shower wall surrounds and replacement shower bases that come in many different colors so they can match virtually any color scheme.