You can make your bath seem bigger without knocking out walls or adding on to your house.

Decorating Tips
1. Take a neutral stance.
Because pale and cool colors reflect light, soft whites, pastels, and neutrals can make a bath feel bigger. Woodwork, trim, and doors will "disappear" if they are painted the same hue as the walls.

2. Lead the eye upward.
Make your ceiling look taller with some visual tricks. Wood moldings, wallpaper borders, and tile designs placed where the walls and ceiling meet will provide a splash of color and help naturally draw the eye upward.

3. Treat your windows simply.
No matter what their size or style, windows help enlarge the feel of a room if they're allowed to transmit light. If possible, leave them unadorned or trimmed lightly with lace or with a valance.

4. Take a reflective look.
Mirrors stretch space by reproducing it. Mirroring the long wall of a narrow bath, for example, can change the room's proportions and make it seem wider. Glass doesn't reproduce space, but it doesn't obstruct it, either.

5. Put clutter in its place.
In a small bath, space is too precious to be taken up by clutter. Pare down your bath countertop to the things you really like or need to have handy, then store the rest.

6. Let the sun shine in.
Look for window and glass designs that welcome sunlight yet protect your privacy. Skylights, for example, open up any room to the sun. So do clerestory windows, which are installed high on the wall, almost at ceiling level.

7. Streamline.
For a sleek, clean look, keep storage flush with walls. Narrow built-in shelving, such as between wall studs, can easily corral collectibles -- from picture frames to perfume bottles. Deeper built-ins -- shelves, drawers, and cabinets tucked into a niche or nook -- are ideal for linens, and don't use floor space like bulky freestanding shelf units.

8. Put on a floor show.
Maintaining an unbroken sweep of floor is a good way to stretch visual space. Yet, bulky components such as the bathtub can make this a difficult task.