30 Vintage Bathroom Ideas That Showcase Gorgeous Antique Style
Vintage decor is taking over today’s home design world, and bathrooms are the perfect place to experiment with antique pieces, old-world finishes, and nostalgic decorating trends.
Vintage bathroom styles range from cottage-cozy to sophisticated glamour, and everything in between. Discover our favorite spaces that combine weathered patinas, nostalgic style, and meaningful mementos with timeless color schemes.
Embrace Color and Pattern
Tamara Flanagan
Much like long-ago lavatories, this small bathroom optimizes every inch of space. Tall cabinets flank the oversized sink, providing necessary storage while furthering the vintage feel.
Layer Antique Mirrors
Nathan Schroder
A collection of ornate Victorian-style mirrors provides a distinctly vintage feel to this bathroom. The classic details anchor the bathroom in the past, as does the reclaimed wood door that frames the bathroom’s entrance.
Incorporate Salvaged Materials
Jay Wilde
Look to tag sales for antique pieces with handsome forms and hardworking functions. In this farmhouse-style bathroom, reclaimed wood decorates the wall and a large vintage window pane makes a statement on the wall above the tub.
Vintage Bathroom Tile Inspiration
Robin Stubbert
This gorgeous bathroom perfectly combines modern elements (like the white zellige wall tile and statement bathtub) with antique wood furniture pieces for a stunning vintage look. The old-fashioned furnishings provide storage and display space that enhances the bathroom’s utility.
Add a Vintage Bathroom Rug
This modern bathroom gets an old-world makeover thanks to a bold vintage rug that anchors the space. Quaint relics, such as the framed wall art and antique stool round out this room’s vintage style.
Hang Cafe Curtains
JULIE SOEFER
Window treatments for a vintage bathroom are a no-brainer: Cafe curtains are simple, cost effective, and can be hung easily with a tension rod (no hardware required!).
Classic Vintage Bathroom
John Merkl
Salvage yards, secondhand centers, and specialty retailers offer a wealth of vintage or reproduction fixtures. Some are ready to use, and others can be retrofitted to bring bygone spirit to your bathroom. Here, a gold faucet steals the spotlight in this neutral vintage bathroom.
Vintage Bathroom Built-Ins
John Gruen
Outfit your bathroom with old things for a new purpose. Here, an antique armoire serves as a faux built-in cabinet for extra storage. The chipped paint adds character and charm, while a pristine standalone tub adds a touch of modern elegance.
Vintage Bathroom with Beadboard
Werner Straube
Vintage bathrooms often take a charming cottage turn. In this cozy space, a refinished wood vanity, white shiplap walls, and soft blue wallpaper give the room an endearing aesthetic.
Vintage Bathroom Fixtures
Annie Schlechter
Every vintage bathroom can benefit from a metallic accent. In this space, gold mirrors, sconces, and fixtures bring a retro glam aesthetic to the marble and gray elements around the room.
Add a Vintage Accent Piece
Michael Partenio
Pedestal sinks come in all shapes and sizes, and this model packs plenty of style into a petite form. A tapered leg and crystal foot give the circular sink a fashion-forward feel. A metal chandelier and antique mirror weave in old-world forms and finishes. Wood floors, woven baskets, and breezy curtains introduce informal textures to the lush blend.
Vintage Bathroom Details
Karyn Millet
It’s often the smallest touches that make a bathroom feel lost in time. For example, rather than sticking with typical light switches and plates, consider installing the old push-button versions. You can find plenty of reproductions made for modern wiring.
Mixed Textures
Laurie Black
Textiles are a significant vintage bathroom idea in this space. The fuzzy area rug, fluffy white towels, and flirty ruffled curtain enclosing the footed tub add pattern and color, take the chill off the white fixtures and act as cushy counterpoints to the straight lines of beaded-board walls.
Unexpected Furniture Finds
Laurie Black
In this vintage bathroom, a handcrafted ladder doubles as a towel rack, while a rusty table and worn bench provide display and resting spots for bathing necessities. Check out the wooden tray that spans the tub; the handy solution keeps lotions and scrubs in easy reach.
Vintage Bathroom Tiles
Anthony Masterson
Enhance a bathroom’s period character by installing tile treatments with vintage bathroom ideas inspired by early lavatories. These homeowners created a fresh take by incorporating green penny tiles in the black-and-white borders on the shower and bathroom floor. Retro daisy motifs on the floor and black horizontal accent tiles in the shower energize the primarily white bathroom.
Architectural Bathroom Features
Michael Partenio
Marble-tiled floors and finely paneled wainscoting formalize this charismatic bathroom. The pedestal tub and capiz-shell light fixture present equally sophisticated silhouettes in modern profiles and materials.
Vintage Bathroom Color Scheme
Better Homes and Gardens
Bright hues and quirky collectibles create vintage bathroom designs that appear to have been assembled through the ages. Here, tall beadboard references early-20th-century beach houses and showcases green and gold accessories. The sometimes-forgotten wall above the commode displays artwork, foliage, and a scallop-edge shelf with a towel bar.
Blue Vintage Bathroom
Richard Leo Johnson
This sweet cottage-inspired bathroom features a pretty vanity built from a repurposed dresser, a surf-and-sky palette, and crisp white surfaces. Gilded touches add chic shimmer, which underscores the room’s collected appeal.
Eclectic Vintage Bathroom
Christina Wedge
An eclectic attitude and retro influences combine for a one-of-a-kind bathroom that’s harmonious while paying tribute to multiple design periods. With the same color scheme, the essential elements—including the vintage-style floor tiles, footed tub, fabrics, and wallcovering—collaborate. Splashes of bright green and shimmering silvers break up the sea of black and white.
Retro Reflections
John Granen
Who needs a double-sink vanity when you can opt for expansive pedestal sinks that provide era-apt profiles and ample counter space? Sea-glass-green paint on horizontally set boards creates a beachy backdrop highlighting mirrored sconces and faucets with retro silhouettes. A prism chandelier contributes flashes of sparkle.
Fashionable Fittings
Reed Davis
Slightly industrial in feel, the vintage bathroom ideas in this bathroom include a porthole as a mirror frame and a caged pendant light to illuminate the shower area. A wide, wall-mount sink accommodates two faucets, while a factory stool with an aged patina is repurposed.
Elegant Vintage Bathroom
Brie Williams
Vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, white-painted rafters, and blue-gray walls detailed with trim create a clean-lined backdrop that subtly references a barn’s interior. A custom configuration of a marble-capped vanity and dressing table partner with a plush vanity bench, breezy sheer curtains, and a claw-foot tub to create a finely furnished space.
Vintage Bathroom Accents
Jay Wilde
Everybody needs more storage in their bathrooms. An antique cupboard, like the one pictured here, is a nostalgic piece that conveniently houses towels, toilet paper, and extra toiletries.
Vintage Bathroom Style
Jay Wilde
A dresser, cleverly converted to a vanity, lends vintage appeal to any bathroom style. Cutouts in the top make way for undermount sinks; a little sanding removed the surface’s finish to differentiate the countertop from the dresser frame. Beadboard wainscoting, a small wall-hung cabinet, and a timeworn mirror blast the bathroom back to eras past.
Welcoming Bathroom Decor
Werner Straube
Blue walls create a peaceful perimeter that accentuates this bathroom’s vintage components. The soothing hue showcases glossy white woodwork, classic black-and-white floor tiles, and a silver-adorned footed tub. A leaf-pattern fabric is used for cafe curtains, upholstery on a footstool, and as insets in the French doors to continue the bathroom’s blue-and-white scheme.
Modern-Vintage Decor
Bill Bennett
An old hutch on wood-clad upper walls, a painted table, and a dining chair supplement storage in this vintage bathroom. Another storage-smart solution? A shallow shelf above the tiled backsplash, deep enough to exhibit colorful canvases and hold toiletries within reach of the sink.
Small Vintage Bathroom Layout
Penny floor tiles, substantial woodwork, and a subway-tile backsplash are classic vintage bathroom ideas. An old-fashioned light fixture and made-over mirror above the pedestal sink reinforce the style. A beat-up metal table takes the place of a vanity countertop; a wood crate below contributes distressed texture.
Small Vintage Bathroom
Edmund Barr
In this small bathroom, a pedestal sink below a pair of casement windows establishes a vintage feel furthered by a bamboo table, weathered stool, and dresser. Marble floor tiles and subway tub and shower tiles contribute time-honored forms to the design.
Glamorous Vintage Bathroom
This silver-footed tub adds a vibrant, vintage note, as does the silver-framed mirror and candelabra-like pendant light. Ledge-like moldings and a shelf align midway up the wall to supply spots for showing off sea-inspired collectibles. Mirrors behind the shelf amplify light, set glass canisters sparkling, and make the room appear larger.
Use a China Cabinet as Storage
Julie Soefer
Antique china cabinets are relatively easy to find secondhand these days. You can give these pieces a new purpose by utilizing them as bathroom storage cabinets. Neatly folded towels always look beautiful stored behind the glass section, and you can stow away extra toiletries in the bottom section.
