Do you need multiple people to share a bathroom space? Check out how we designed our split bathroom to work for our four kids and avoid bathroom chaos! Below you’ll find plenty of split bathroom design ideas.
I’m excited to share another room reveal in our pole barn home, which is our split bathroom space for our four kids. Yes, just one bathroom for all of them.
If that sounds like a family disaster to you, well, it very well could be! But in our case, we possibly made the smartest design decision for this house and created a split bathroom.
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If this is a new concept to you, let’s chat about and take a tour around our finished kids’ bathroom.
If you want to see more of our pole barn home, here is a tour of our living room, European farmhouse kitchen, master bathroom, laundry room, homeschool room, and the home exterior.
What is a split bathroom?
It is exactly what the name implies where you split the bathroom with a door to designate privacy and certain functions.
There might be several ways to do this, but in our modern-day, the most common is to separate the toilet and maybe the shower and/or tub area from a bathroom vanity “getting ready” area.
Fun fact! Split bathrooms go way back to the Victorian Era, where indoor plumbing technology was added gradually.
It first started with the ability to bathe and wash. Later the porcelain thrones were created and usually added to the house separate from the washrooms. Aren’t we all just so grateful for indoor plumbing?!
For the space we had here and considering the needs of our 4 kids, we split our bathroom so the shower/tub was with the toilet and included a simple sink vanity area.
The other part of the bathroom has a lot of countertop space, one small sink, a giant mirror and loads of storage.
This is basically the designated “getting ready” area. Whether it is night or morning, we can have someone in the shower or going to the bathroom, another out here brushing their teeth, one might be doing their hair. This has worked out really well, especially considering there are four kids sharing this one bathroom!
The “Getting Ready” Area
Starting with what we like to call the “getting ready” area, let’s look at what we’ve done. You’ll notice this big long bathroom vanity, but if you look close enough you can tell it is actually two smaller vanities placed together.
By ordering 2 smaller vanities without countertops or sinks, we saved hundreds of dollars. So, big money saver to go this route.
But also, it was near impossible to find a longer vanity that didn’t have two sinks. If you buy a smaller vanity with a countertop, it is of course going to include a sink.
I actually only wanted one sink in this room because I knew with three girls, we would need more countertop space for curling irons, blow dryers, makeup, brushes, you name it.
If we did two sinks, that would leave us very little countertop space and less cabinet storage space. Also, with the sink in the shower/toilet area… three sinks would have just been overkill.
So, we just bought the two vanity base units and made a DIY marble countertop so that only one side had a sink cut out.
Cutting and honing your own marble is hard and hefty work, but this whole top of real Carrara marble only cost about $100 dollars. We could customize it to fit our needs exactly – so that is pretty awesome.
The marble cuts are a little imperfect since we don’t have massive marble manufacturing tools. But we embrace the imperfections and rejoice in all the money we saved.
Bathroom Vanity Mirror
Moving on, this vanity mirror was also a custom build. We framed it out with a slim piece of walnut wood.
I just recently shared the tutorial on how we did that.
Bathroom Lighting Fixtures
We have some really pretty brass lighting in here that fills the space with light. The bathroom doesn’t actually have any direct natural light, which is the biggest downside of this space.
Here is the vanity light and the glass pendant light that we installed.
Bathroom Flooring
I had some fun mixing up the flooring a bit for each split bathroom space.
In the getting ready area, I’ve used square travertine tile with thick grout lines and that blends into small rectangle travertine tiles in the other bathroom space. Both we bought from Floor and Decor.
Bathroom Paint Colors
On the walls, most of it is painted with a flat white paint. I used Benjamin Moore’s chantilly lace, but along this far wall we went pretty bold for me with this dark pewter paint color called “Lazy Afternoon” by PPG Paints.
I thought I would regret this in such a small space but I really love the contrast and it still feels like a bright space but with a bit of that moodiness that is so popular these days.
We added some vertical trim pieces to look like planks and we painted all the trim and wall treatments this darker color.
Bathroom Decor
If you saw my recent antique haul post, you’ve already seen this beautiful vintage wool rug I picked up that fit the space perfectly.
I think it brings in some great contrast and that European farmhouse vibe that I am trying to create throughout this home.
We don’t need to store a lot of towels in this section of the bathroom. So I just put up one of my favorite antique finds, this cool wood piece with hangers.
It holds a couple of these amazingly beautiful linen towels from Olive & Linen.
USE THE CODE “CAMITIDBITS30” FOR 30% OFF ANY ORDER AT OLIVE AND LINEN.
I am completely obsessed with their bath towels and can’t resist adding them to each bath space whenever I can.
To me, they are the piece de resistance of any space and I often splurge on my linens. It is just my thing if you didn’t already know that from shopping in my own TIDBITS linen shop.
Art Decor
This art is really special to all of us. It was just an inexpensive digital print I got from an online shop and printed locally.
It was titled “joan”. The artwork caught my attention because we had just been studying Joan of Arc in our homeschool history lessons.
My kids were very impressed with her courage and conviction. We like to imagine this is her, contemplating cutting her hair and what that act of courage meant for her going forward.
I like to hope my kids will often look at it while getting ready for the day. It’ll be nice if they remember her courage and see the beauty and strength within themselves.
Shower, Tub, Toilet, and Vanity Area
Moving on to the other split section in this bathroom. One of my favorite features is this open vanity with the brass base and marble countertop.
This was bought as a complete piece. I love to hang a towel on the brass bars.
I knew we wouldn’t need a ton of storage and drawers in this area of the bathroom. So I was excited to use a more open vanity.
The mirror is just an antique mirror I’ve had for years. It is a little worn and full of patina, and I love it.
Towels
We hang a hand towel next to the vanity, and here is a little tip for you. If your towel rod or hanger leaves your hand towels puddling on the vanity countertop, try tying it up, sort of like a scarf to get most of it off the vanity top.
It looks cute and keeps it from getting soaking wet. And look at the cute soap dispenser that adds some green color to the space.
I like these thinner linen towels or Turkish towels, again from Olive & Linen. They dry quicker and look so great in a bathroom.
I used some cute shaker pegs where they can hang their towels and placed a baby picture of each kiddo above.
They all know which towel is their’s, and it is just super sweet to look at.
These waffle linen towels from Olive & Linen are so divine. They are the softest linen towels I’ve ever felt. I love the fringe at the bottom and the kids say they are super absorbent.
Just so so pretty, and yes, I am an absolute towel snob. But I also loved how well these went with the shower curtain and curtain rods I purchased for this space.
Storage Cabinet
Above the toilet, we placed a little storage cabinet. It happened to be very close to the same color as the vanity cabinets in the other room so it all flows really nicely together.
Let’s take a quick look at the tub and shower area. We opted for a really deep and wide soaker tub in here.
We have a corner caddy in the tub area for the kids to share. Then we close off the shower with this cute shower curtain. I found these curtain hooks to match.
I hope you enjoyed the tour of our split bathroom for the kids! I’d love to hear in the comments what you think of a split bathroom concept!
Check out my Pinterest board for more bathroom design ideas. and be sure to pin some of my images to your own Pinterest boards!
Thanks for reading!
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