Overview
The most stylish Surrey bathroom designs in 2026 will keep a focus on traditional elegance, alongside some characterful accessories such as abundant plant life or statement pieces. When incorporating bathroom design trends, the most important thing to remember is to limit concepts to one or two ideas so that your room doesn’t become too busy.
Table of Contents
Wellness bathrooms that actually work
Investing in muted elegance
Brushed finishes to warm things up
Mood lighting that does it all
Super storage for a clear mind
FAQs
The beginning of a new year might be a bit of an arbitrary point to assess new bathroom design trends, but it’s as good a time as any. So if you’re planning your home improvements for the year ahead and including a bathroom refit in your plans, it’s worth taking a look at where styles and trends are heading. With updates like Pantone’s colour of the year to take into account, we can make some helpful design suggestions to inspire your creativity.
Wellness bathrooms that actually work
Wellness bathrooms represent a shift towards treating your bathroom as a personal retreat rather than just a functional space. This trend centres on natural materials, greenery, and large spa-like showers that transform your daily routine into a restorative experience.
Natural stone surfaces, timber accents, and earth-toned ceramics create a grounding atmosphere that feels worlds away from the sterile, clinical bathrooms of previous decades. Adding plants, whether that’s a substantial houseplant in the corner or small succulents on floating shelves, introduces living elements that improve air quality and create a calming aesthetic.
Large walk-in showers with rainfall heads and body jets are replacing traditional bath and shower combinations in many Surrey homes. These features offer a genuinely spa-like experience without requiring the footprint of a separate wet room. When you’re designing your wellness bathroom, consider incorporating textured tiles, underfloor heating, and adequate ventilation to support your indoor plants.
Investing in muted elegance
Muted elegance (or ‘quiet luxury’) is about investing in high quality materials and furniture whilst avoiding ostentatiousness. This approach prioritises craftsmanship and longevity over flashy statement pieces that might date quickly.
Allocate budget to bespoke, handcrafted vanity units, natural stone worktops instead of composite alternatives, and quality brassware that you can feel the quality of when you use it. It is about investing in the fabric of the room, such as the tiling, the brassware, and the cabinetry so that the luxury is felt in the daily use of the space.
This trend pairs perfectly with the Pantone colour of the year ‘Cloud Dancer’ aesthetic. This colour is described as “a billowy white imbued with serenity”. You aren’t looking for stark, clinical whites, but rather a foundation for soft, welcoming tones that feel expensive because of their texture and finish, not their price tag. This year, those tones are soft pastels: yellows, pinks and blues.
Brushed finishes to warm things up
Brushed finishes are having a moment, specifically brushed brass and gold that complement warm rose tones and softer colour schemes. These finishes offer a more subtle alternative to the polished chrome that has dominated bathroom design for years.
Brushed metals have a matte quality that catches light differently throughout the day, creating visual depth without the high-gloss reflections that can feel harsh in smaller spaces. They’re also more forgiving when it comes to water marks and fingerprints, which is a practical consideration for busy family bathrooms.
You don’t need to commit to brushed finishes for every fixture in your bathroom. Mixing a brushed brass tap with brushed gold cabinet handles and chrome towel rails can work beautifully, provided you maintain a consistent finish type (so all brushed rather than mixing brushed and polished).
Mood lighting that does it all
Mood lighting transforms your bathroom from a purely functional space into one that adapts to different times of day and different needs. While not all your lighting can be mood lighting – you need clear, bright task illumination around the mirror, for example, without it your bathroom will lack character and feel dated.
We talk more here about how to layer different lighting functions in a bathroom for a balanced overall lighting scheme. Ideal mood (or accent) lighting features are LEDs installed under cabinets and within recessed shelving. Lit recesses are a signature feature at Stone & Chrome, and are always loved by our clients.
The key across your layered lighting scheme is flexibility. That’s why dimmable, even colour changing LED options, where possible, are so popular. These give you the option to move from cool whites to warm yellows to cosy pinks at the turn of a dial or touch of a button.
Super storage for a clear mind
Super storage is essential for maintaining the clear, clutter free spaces that define 2026’s serene bathroom trends. Plenty of concealed storage allows you to keep countertops clear whilst ensuring everything you need remains easily accessible.
Floating units with deep drawers maintain the sense of floor space in your bathroom whilst providing substantial storage capacity. These work particularly well in combination with recessed wall niches in shower areas, which give you storage for toiletries without protruding shelves that break up clean lines.
Consider dedicating specific zones for different storage needs: deep drawers with integrated sections to give each family member their own space are a great start. When you’re planning your storage, think about what you’ll actually need to store rather than defaulting to standard configurations. With bespoke carpentry, you can make use of every inch of room space to optimise your storage.
All of these bathroom design trends, when viewed together, reflect an overall movement towards uncomplicated design that prioritises clarity and balance. If you’re considering a bathroom renovation and would like expert guidance on incorporating specific concepts and trends into your bathroom refit, contact us at Stone & Chrome, or visit our showroom.
FAQs
What is Pantone’s Colour of the Year for 2026?
Pantone’s colour of the year is Cloud Dancer. Here’s what Pantone say about it:
“Cloud Dancer is a key structural colour whose versatility provides scaffolding for the colour spectrum, allowing all colours to shine. In a world where colour has become synonymous with personal expression, this is a shade that can adapt, harmonise, and create contrast, bringing a feeling of airy lightness to all product applications and environments, whether making a standalone statement or combined with other hues.”
What does “Quiet Luxury” mean?
Quiet luxury refers to a room design that exudes luxury without being ostentatious. Rather than flamboyant designs, the focus is on quality handcrafting and high end materials. Rooms that are designed with a ‘quiet luxury’ concept are likely to remain stylish and in excellent condition long term.
Is it important to incorporate trends in a bathroom refit?
Trends are a great place to start when looking for design inspiration for a bathroom refit. As experienced designers, we would advise against incorporating too many trends in one room, as this is more likely to date in the long term. Choose one or two trends that appeal to you and use these as a core of your design.