Do You Style Your Toilet?
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The bathroom may be one of the smallest spaces in the home, but that doesn’t make it any less essential. In fact, some may argue it’s the most important room of all. The only drawback is, well, the toilet. Though there are myriad options on the market—smart toilets, traditional toilets, and everything in between—they all serve the same purpose. So, big Q: to curate or not to curate? Is this flushing-mechanism a vessel for great style or, simply put, off-limits? We needed a gut-check, so we asked five experts for their opinions on the matter, and let us just say that the design community is divided.
Some, including Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Victoria Armour, and Richmond, Virginia native Pattie Kelly, agree that the toilet is basically a necessary evil toward which our gaze should always be averted. “Leave the toilet as is and create a space where the toilet is the last thing you look at,” Armour explains. “Making it disappear is the way to go.” Kelly is in the same camp. She advocates for giving the toilet its own private space where it’s out of sight and out of mind entirely. “If the toilet must remain out in the open, I recommend minimizing it as much as possible,” she suggests. “In fact, I often opt for a white lever to match the toilet so it all just blends together. Adding a chrome, black, or gold lever adds contrast and attracts your eye, which we want to avoid at all costs.”
Both designers make good points. There’s no real aesthetic or practical reason for decorating a toilet. Popping a candle or fragrance atop the tank isn’t like draping a throw blanket across the arm of an L-shape sectional. If the toilet must exist, Kelly and Armour agree, it shouldn’t be dressed up in curated decorations. After all, it’s hard to make a toilet really shine (aesthetically, of course) the way you would other bathroom essentials. Sure, everyone goes, but is that a highlightable moment?
Some designers, such as Chicagoan Crystal Blackshaw and Hoover, Alabama-based Leslie Davis, are all for it. “I almost always style the back of a toilet, especially in an open bathroom floor plan,” Davis admits. “I like to use fresh flowers, and if the client is agreeable to a styled toilet tank, I will create a faux floral or simple stem arrangement for a more permanent look.” Since humans haven’t evolved past needing a commode, opting for a permanent look is definitely something to consider. “I sometimes add a special bath spray, a small vase of flowers, or even a little trinket box that pulls in the colors of the bathroom design,” Blackshaw suggests.
Perhaps House Beautiful’s longtime market director Carisha Swanson’s view on the subject is the most divisive: “In my very petite powder room that has a pedestal sink and no shelves, I do have a box of Kleenex on top (in a stone tissue box holder) and a candle. Necessity drives use.”
At the end of the day, there’s really no right answer. It all boils down to whether or not you want your toilet to look and feel as special as the other curated vignettes, appliances, and fixtures in your home. “Some day soon, we’ll all be tankless. So either the pedestal sinks will need to have more counter space, or heaven forbid we’ll be ‘curating’ our floors with standing candle holders,” Carisha adds. Let’s hope she’s wrong.
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