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Gold Coast Bathroom Renovations

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Renovation Design

Creating Contrast with Gloss White in your Bathroom Renovation

Gloss White Bathroom Renovations
Gloss White Bathroom Renovations

With bathroom renovations, colour choices are everything. Even a minor and unassuming bathroom reno can benefit immensely from attention to detail in colour. When you’re putting together a prospective colour palette for your bathroom, don’t forget about a colour so common it’s often forgotten about.. the all-important bathroom colour gloss white.. which is found in almost all bathrooms via fixtures such as basins, toilets and bathtubs. In this article, we’re going to look at creating contrast with gloss white in your bathroom renovation – how you can leverage this existing colour create an optimal result in your new bathroom colour scheme – Read on to learn more. If you’re on the Gold Coast, please contact our team to arrange a free consultation and quote for your bathroom renovation project:

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What is Gloss White?

The colour ‘white’ comes in a massive range of variants. On simplicable.com, they list 52 different types of white – that is a lot! So when you are considering using white with your interior design, the next question may be, “which one?”

Gloss white is one of many possible different variations of white. What makes a white a “gloss white“? Gloss white combines two key aspects; a pure, bright white aesthetic – and a glossy finish. This creates a shiny, reflective impression.

Gloss White (Bath, Wall, Basin, Vanity) in an Armrock Project

What is The Difference Between Gloss White & Matt White?

The difference between gloss and matt whites is in how shiny the finished surface appears. Another word for this shine, in terms of paints, is ‘sheen’ (just mentioning this so you can sound like an expert discussing these matters with your friends). Glossy surfaces are very shiny (they have a high level of sheen) and reflect a lot of light. Matt finishes are dull, and absorb, rather than reflect light. Using them judiciously is the key to creating an ideal outcome. Matt and gloss finishes can also be used together to create delightful, minimal contrasts that add visual interest to your bathroom design.

Creating Contrast with Gloss White in your Bathroom Renovation

Why be concerned with gloss white when you’re thinking about a bathroom renovation? Gloss white is highly likely to have a presence in your bathroom due to the fact that so many common porcelain fixtures for bathrooms come in this colour as a default. It’s not in all bathrooms – I’ve seen all-black bathroom with no gloss white in sight! But it’s in the majority. A glossy white finish is practically a standard for basins, bathtubs, tiles and toilets – it’s an extremely popular finish for bathroom assets.

Why are Bathroom Fixtures Often Gloss White?

The reasons why gloss white is so prevalent in bathroom fixtures are pretty interesting. First of all, gloss white creates a clean, bright appearance, which is basically the goal of 90% of bathroom designs. In bathrooms, hygiene is important, and it’s easy to show that yes, thank you, you have cleaned the bathroom, when white is the background colour.

Some colours make it easier to show how clean something is, and gloss white is the queen of ’em all, especially with its smooth, non-porous nature. On the topic of cleanliness, gloss white is also easy to clean. Its smooth surface is a cinch to wipe down.. would it be going too far to say it actually makes cleaning fun? On reflection, probably, yes.

Gloss white looks the part, does the job, and is easy to maintain – no wonder it’s so popular in bathrooms all around the world!

Utilising Gloss White in Your Bathroom

The whole point of this article is to ensure you make the most of the inclusion of gloss white in standard bathroom fixtures. It’s already there, so it can be leveraged, and the overall impression optimised accordingly. Let’s look at some of the key ways you can utilise your gloss white fixtures to make a great impression in your bathroom design.

Minimal Contrast Integrity

Creating Contrast with Gloss White in your Bathroom Renovation

In this Gold Coast bathroom renovation, we designed, built and installed a custom vanity unit which features a gloss-white mounted basin. By the way, did you know that we specialise in custom bathroom vanities? They’re often a highlight of our renovations. You can read more about them here if you’re interested. Anyway! What’s fabulous about this solution is the low-key soft-grey background tiled feature wall behind the vanity. This enables the whites to pop, without being overwhelming; so everything subtly integrates into a lovely functional whole.

By virtue of its gloss-white demeanour and elevated position against this backdrop, the basin becomes a featured pinnacle within the room. Anchored by the laminated timber-style bench top, the vanity and basin contrive to create an impression of emergence within the room. Not a bad result – and all because the gloss white was integrated, and not included as an afterthought.

High Contrast with Colour

High contrast solutions are also common using opposing colours to set up a strong relationship with gloss white fixtures. This generally creates a more striking, sophisticated, exciting and confident look. Just the thing for a penthouse! In this Gold Coast high-rise renovation, we used a black laminated benchtop for powerful contrast with not just the basins but the entire bathroom and suite. This is enhanced by LED backlit circular mirrors. Creating contrast with gloss white in your bathroom renovation doesn’t require a high-contrast solution like this – but this is the most striking contrast that you can achieve.

Creating Contrast with Gloss White in your Bathroom Renovation – Contrasting with Texture

While contrasting with colour is an effective way to make a statement, textural contrasts are also a wonderful way to enhance your bathroom style. In the above image, we produced a colonial style bathroom renovation for an all-white solution. In such cases, the gloss whites which can be found in the bathtub, basins and vanity unit, enjoy a minimal and mainly textural contrast with other elements such as the wrap-around wall tiling and marble-tiled floors.

Rolling Highlight Contrast

Creating Contrast with Gloss White in your Bathroom Renovation

In this example, which is a more classical approach, the gloss white elements (bathtub, basins) have a high degree of contrast against the muted white tiles and especially the timber-style vanity. Notice how the back-lit LED mirrors light up the basins for visual impact. The great thing about gloss white in a bathroom situation is its versatility. It can go with similar, or different elements and easily build sustainable relationships with them.

Make the Most of Your Gloss White Fixtures

Gloss white is in most bathrooms and it makes sense to capitalise on this fact. Whether you’re going for a low, medium or high-contrast bathroom solution, you can leverage your gloss white fixtures to really make the most of the possibilities on offer.

Some Good Questions to Ask:

  1. Do I want my bathroom to be striking, or low key? A high-contrast result is more striking, and if you’re using gloss-white fixtures, this will mean pairing them with high-contrast fixtures.
  2. Do I want my bathroom to have subtle nuances? Investigate using textures that subtly contrast with your gloss white elements.
  3. How can I bring it all together? Think about how your bathroom elements are anchored in the room. Use colours and textures to position them so that they look as if they belong.
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Should Blinds Be Lighter or Darker Than Walls

Have you ever wondered whether blinds should be lighter or darker than walls? It’s a great question and one that should be considered when approaching an optimal interior blind solution for your home or business renovation.

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Unfortunately, this is not a “Yes” “No” answer – there’s more to it than that! It depends on a few factors. What we will do here, (and hopefully this is useful for you) is look at some common colour-difference examples and also important considerations that have bearing on this question.

Blinds Same Colour as Walls

When your blinds are the same colour as your walls, you’re effectively creating a continuous look with your interior blind installation. The presence of the blinds is absolutely minimised, which means you have a totally safe solution, from the point of view of being concerned about design errors! The blinds, frames and walls work together, with no visual hierarchy. The advantage of this solution is that it’s safe and gives you total control over the design of the room with accessories, artwork & furniture, and that it’s easily transferrable to a new resident or style. The disadvantage is in the eye of the beholder – there are many design opportunities with interior blinds, and using the same colour as the walls doesn’t necessarily make the most of these opportunities.

Blinds Lighter than the Walls

When blinds are lighter than the walls, you have a degree of contrast in the room. Is this contrast better, or worse than the contrast created by blinds that are darker than the walls? One advantage of lightening the blinds is that you can also lighten the room. If the room is smaller, or darker, adding lighter blinds can help to lift and extend the perspective of the room. Also, a pattern on lighter blinds can reference the outdoors as well and integrate the blinds with the walls via the pattern.

Blinds Darker than the Walls

Opting for blinds that are slightly darker than the colour of the walls & frames gives the blinds more visual strength in the room. By defining the window shapes with our slightly darker colour, we convert them into design objects within the room.

These objects have a relationship with each other and also with the other elements inside the room. Depending on the room, these relationships can be optimised to anchor the overall design of the room and give direction and stability to the layout. Note how in the example below, the windows align with the edges of the desk creating an invisible grid within the room. The strength of this grid is aligned to the fact that the blinds have sufficient presence to create them – an advantage of slightly darker blinds than walls.

Blind vs Wall Ratio

Using a screen fabric roller blind (which during the daylight hours allows light transmission through the blinds, making them lighter than the walls) creates indoor / outdoor integration, and a spaciousness that extends beyond the room. Here, the blinds effectively become a whole wall unto themselves, an altogether different consideration than when blinds form only a part of a wall. The extent of then blinds vs the wall should always be taken into account when considering the lightness and darkness of blinds vs walls for this reason. In this example, the blinds become a feature wall that has a relationship with the rest of the room, which is a different proposition altogether.

Factoring Frames

In art, the frame plays an important role in the presentation of the artwork. When pictures are professionally framed, they are made in sympathy to the artwork they’re framing, and even the room for which they are intended. Frames matter, because they establish a relationship between the artwork and the room.

In the case of blinds, frames perform a similar role, but they’re not necessarily being changed when you change your blinds. So they need to be taken into account, particularly when they’re different to the walls. In this roller blind example below, the white frames are a lighter colour than the walls, and the blinds are darker than both. This has the effect of strengthening the presence of the blind, a handy result since the blind is only slightly darker than the wall. These are the little nuances that make interior designs interesting and successful.

Summary

In summary, there are advantages and disadvantages to different approaches. With interior blinds, it’s really important to achieve a result that has longevity (that you won’t get sick of quickly) and that contributes positively to the style of your room. This can be achieved with both dark and lighter window-dressing solutions.