School bathrooms have a reputation problem. Peeling paint, busted soap dispensers, flickering lights, and smells that make you want to hold your breath until you’re back in the hallway. Kids wait all day to go home rather than use them, which creates health issues nobody wants to deal with.
These spaces don’t need to stay miserable. Simple updates transform bathrooms from places students actively avoid into facilities they’re comfortable using. Better bathrooms mean healthier kids, fewer disruptions during class, and an overall improvement in how the school day feels.
Here are ten ways to upgrade school bathrooms without draining the entire facilities budget.
1. Pick Colours That Add Life to the Space
Colour matters way more than people think when it comes to how a space feels. Walk into most school bathrooms, and you’re hit with beige. Or that weird grey-green.
For girls’ bathrooms, go with gentle colours that feel calm and welcoming. Light purple, soft peach, pale mint, or powder blue all work beautifully. These aren’t screaming pink princess vibes, just nice colours that make the space feel intentional and pleasant.
Boys’ bathrooms need the same thoughtful approach. Try slate blue, warm tan, muted olive, or soft charcoal grey. These colours feel put-together and modern instead of institutional and forgotten.
2. Stick Positive Messages Where Kids Will See Them
Students use bathrooms multiple times daily, which makes them perfect spots for motivational quotes and positive reminders. You’ve got a captive audience, so use that time wisely.
Choose messages that fit the age group. Little kids respond to simple stuff about kindness and trying hard. Older students need quotes about following dreams, believing in themselves, or making their mark on the world.
Vinyl wall stickers make this super easy. They come in endless styles, stick right on the wall, and peel off cleanly when you want something new. Put them near mirrors or above sinks where kids naturally look anyway.
Word hygiene reminders in friendly ways. “Keep Those Hands Clean, Superstar!” beats “WASH YOUR HANDS NOW” any day. Let students create bathroom art featuring inspirational messages. Art classes can design posters or murals combining words with creative visuals. Kids pay more attention to stuff made by other students than generic purchased decorations.
3. Turn Walls Into a Forest Scene
Nature-themed design transforms boring bathrooms into spaces that actually feel good to be in. Forests work great because you can layer in lots of different calming elements.
Paint simple trees on the walls. Even if you’re not artistic, basic tree trunks and branch outlines get the point. Make them realistic or keep them stylised and graphic, depending on your overall vibe.
Paint more greenery in spots where real plants won’t work. Vines climbing around doorways, leaves scattered on upper walls, and branches spreading across the ceiling. Simple painted leaves in different shades of green create that lush forest feeling.
Add in some friendly animals through stickers or painted details. Owls, deer, rabbits, butterflies. These little touches make kids smile and complete the woodland theme.
4. Make Adorable Sheep From Toilet Paper Rolls
Here’s a craft project that turns trash into bathroom decorations that kids actually made themselves. Tissue roll sheep cost basically nothing and look ridiculously cute on walls.
Collect empty toilet paper tubes from classrooms and send notes home asking families to save them. You’ll need quite a pile to make a whole flock, but they’re free.
Let students paint the tubes during art time. Cream, white, or soft pastel colours work as sheep bodies. Each kid can claim their own sheep, which makes them care about the final display.
These sheep work perfectly with forest themes or stand alone as a cheerful focal point that makes the bathroom feel special.
5. Give Boring Spaces Some Personality
Bathroom doors and walls usually get ignored during makeovers, but they’re blank canvases waiting for colour and pattern.
Try quotes and geometric designs for a clean, modern look. Stripes, chevrons, triangles, whatever speaks to you. These patterns pull your colour scheme together while adding visual punch. You can add quotes like “be the reason someone smiles today.”
6. Fix the Terrible Lighting Situation
Fluorescent lights make everyone look sick and feel worse. Changing to softer lighting completely transforms how the bathroom feels.
Add dedicated mirror lighting so students can actually see their faces properly. Good lighting here helps with grooming and makes kids feel better about how they look, which matters more than adults sometimes realise.
Install dimmers if your budget allows. Bathrooms don’t need the same brightness all day long. Slightly dimmed lights during early morning or late afternoon create a calmer atmosphere.
Install motion sensors in individual stalls so no one enters a dark space. These should trigger instantly and stay on long enough that students don’t remain in the dark.
7. Teach Handwashing Without Being Annoying About It
Getting kids to wash their hands thoroughly is tough. Visual guides make it easier and more fun than nagging.
Create bright posters showing each handwashing step. Wet hands, soap up, scrub for 20 seconds, rinse, dry. Place these directly above the sinks where students will reference them naturally.
Paint a timer guide on the wall. Show what 20 seconds looks like, suggest singing Happy Birthday twice, or create a visual countdown. This helps kids know if they’re washing long enough.
Put footprint stickers on the floor leading to sinks. These work amazingly well with little kids who follow the path automatically, turning handwashing into a game.
8. Design Spaces That Work for Different Kids
When schools have separate bathrooms, each space can reflect what its main users actually want and need.
Girls’ bathrooms look beautiful with garden themes full of flowers and butterflies, ocean scenes with coral and fish, or meadow themes with wildflowers, pretty without being over-the-top girly.
Include practical items girls need, such as shelves for personal items, good mirror lighting, and working dispensers for feminine products.
Boys’ bathrooms work great with adventure themes. Space exploration, sports, camping, or city skylines. Cool stuff that appeals to their interests while looking sophisticated.
Ask students what they actually want. Survey their preferences on themes, colours, and features. Their input ensures you create spaces they’ll appreciate and use.
9. Bring Green Plants Into Dead Spaces
Plants make bathrooms feel alive and cared-for rather than sterile and neglected. Mix real and fake strategically.
Choose real plants that handle bathroom conditions. Pothos, spider plants, and peace lilies all thrive in varying humidity and light. Place them where they won’t get knocked over but stay visible.
Hang plants from the ceiling to use vertical space. This adds greenery without taking up floor area and keeps plants safely away from traffic.
Use quality fake plants where real ones would die. Modern artificial plants look surprisingly realistic and need zero maintenance.
Paint huge botanical murals where physical plants can’t grow. Giant ferns, tropical leaves, and flowering vines. These permanent installations never need watering.
Combine painted and real plants so they blend together seamlessly, creating immersive garden environments that feel special.
10. Keep It Real and Doable
The best bathroom improvements are ones you can actually afford and maintain long-term.
Start with cheap high-impact changes like paint and vinyl decals. These transform spaces dramatically without breaking budgets.
Get students involved in making decorations. Tissue roll, sheep, painted murals, and handmade posters. These cost almost nothing while giving kids ownership.
Phase improvements gradually. Paint this month, plants next month, lighting later. Spreading work prevents budget shock.
Pick durable materials that survive heavy daily use. School bathrooms need tougher stuff than home bathrooms.
Design Lively and Functional Bathrooms
School bathrooms can actually be nice places instead of spaces everyone avoids. With creativity and commitment, schools build bathrooms that students feel comfortable using.
Pick improvements that seem doable for your situation. Even one or two changes make real differences. Involve students, maintain everything carefully, and watch how better bathrooms improve the whole school environment.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,