Five small changes that made our bathroom feel bigger

The bathroom is the one room you can’t style your way out of — it’s small, it’s tiled in a colour from another decade, and as renters we can’t touch any of it. For ages I just shut the door on it. Then I treated it like every other small space in the flat: subtract, then add a few honest things.

Out went the jumble of half-empty bottles on the ledge. In came a single shelf, decanted essentials, one folded stack of better towels and a small plant that tolerates a windowless room. A warm bulb instead of the surgical white one did more for the mood than anything I spent money on.

None of it was permanent and none of it was expensive, which is rather the point of this whole journal. Owning a place, or renovating it, was never the requirement for living well in it. You need to look honestly at the room you actually have and make the few small changes it’s quietly asking for.