White Bathrooms: Choosing the Right White

White is the default bathroom color for good reasons: it reflects what little light a bathroom gets, it is easy to keep looking fresh, and it goes with every metal. It is also the easiest to get subtly wrong, because a white bathroom is really six or seven whites from different makers: the tub, toilet, sink, tile, grout, counter, paint and trim. When they disagree, the room looks dingy rather than clean. This page explains how to make them agree.

Warm, cool and clean whites

Every white has a slight tint. Hold a sample against a plain sheet of printer paper and the tint shows.

Start with the whites you cannot change

In a bathroom the fixtures set the white, not the paint. Vitreous china toilets and sinks, enameled tubs and acrylic tubs and shower bases each come in the maker's own white, and a glossy enameled surface reflects light differently from matte acrylic. You cannot adjust them, so:

1. Gather the fixture whites. Ask for sample chips or view the fixtures side by side. If you are keeping an existing tub or toilet, bring a white sample next to it.
2. Choose the tile white against them. White tile ranges from blue-white to cream. A tub surround tile that is cooler than the tub makes the tub look yellow; one that is warmer makes the tub look gray.
3. Choose the counter. A white quartz or solid surface top sits right beside the sink, so check those two together under the vanity light.
4. Choose the grout. See tile and grout color pairings.
5. Choose the paint last, with every other sample in hand.

Paint whites and their LRV

Light reflectance value runs from 0 to 100; a higher number reflects more light. Sherwin-Williams prints the LRV on the back of every chip. Whites cluster near the top of the scale, so the differences that matter are undertone more than a few points of LRV. These are manufacturer-published values for a few whites, given as examples, not recommendations:

The right column is our description, not the manufacturer's measurement, and your bathroom light will change it. In a north-facing or windowless room, the clean whites can look gray, and the warmer whites usually hold up better; colors for Pacific Northwest light explains why.

Using one white or several

Using one paint white on walls, ceiling and trim is the simplest choice and rarely looks wrong. Different sheens already make the surfaces look slightly different, since semi-gloss trim reflects more than satin walls. If you want the trim to stand apart, keep it the same undertone and change the sheen or move one step brighter.

What does not work is two unrelated whites that are nearly the same, such as a warm wall white beside a cool tile white. They look like a mismatch, not a choice. When in doubt, match the paint to the tile's undertone and let the tile be the brighter of the two; glazed tile always reads brighter than paint.

Keeping white from feeling clinical

An all-white bathroom with chrome and cool lighting can feel like a clinic. The fix is not more color. It is warmth and texture:

• Wood. A white oak or walnut vanity, a wood shelf or a wood-look floor tile warms the whole room. See vanity colors and wood tones.
• Texture in the tile. Handmade or glazed tile with slight variation, a three-dimensional pattern, or a matte floor beside glossy walls gives a white room depth. See zellige and handmade tile.
• Warm metal. Brass or bronze against white is warmer than chrome or nickel. See bathroom fixture finishes.
• Warm light. Warm-white bulbs at the vanity do more for a cold-feeling white bathroom than a change of paint.
• A darker floor. A floor a few steps darker than the walls grounds the room and hides footprints.
• Textiles. Towels, a rug and a shower curtain, if you use one, are the cheapest way to add color you can change.

Practical points

• White and mineral spots. Dried water leaves white mineral marks. They are nearly invisible on white tile and white fixtures and very visible on black metal and dark tile.
• White and stains. Hair dye, makeup and rust from metal cans show on a white counter and in white grout. Keep the darkest-staining items off porous surfaces.
• Paint sheen. A white wall in a bathroom needs a sheen that tolerates moisture and cleaning. The options are on bathroom wall finishes and paint.

For how whites work across cabinets and counters in a kitchen, the companion page is white kitchens.

Getting it right before tile is ordered

The whites in a bathroom are locked in once tile is ordered and fixtures arrive. JDI's designer pulls fixture, tile, counter and grout samples together for you during design, so the whites are compared in one place before anything is ordered. To start, see our Vancouver bathroom remodeling page.