Master Bathroom with Brown Marble Shower Wall

It is a counter-top vessel basin, the oval white bowl that sits on top of the slab rather than dropping into it. The counter is a black granite, which shrugs off water marks and toothpaste better than a light stone. Below it is a wood vanity with two shutters for daily storage. A counter-top bowl is easy to swap later if you want a new look, though the raised bowl needs wiping around the base where splashes collect.

The shower is open, with no glass partition or curtain. A square shower head comes off a wall arm, fed by a concealed mixer set into the beige marble. A separate health faucet hangs alongside. Leaving the area open makes a small bathroom feel bigger and there is no glass to squeegee, but the flip side is that the whole floor gets wet, so the slope to the drain has to be right. The floor stone is the same beige marble throughout.

It is a one-piece floor-mounted toilet, the type where the cistern and pan are a single moulded unit. There is no wall-hung frame here, so the plumbing stays simpler and cheaper to service. The taps and the mixer are chrome, matched across the basin and shower so the metal looks like one set. A wall exhaust sits high near the ceiling to clear steam. Nothing here is exotic, which keeps spares easy to find in any hardware shop.

Lighting is kept simple. Recessed spotlights sit in a plain white false ceiling, spaced to cover the basin, the toilet and the shower evenly. There is no decorative pendant, which suits a wet room where fittings must be sealed and easy to wipe. The warm stone does the rest of the mood work once the lights are on.

Marble is softer than porcelain, so it wants a little care. Wiping the shower wall down after use and sealing the stone every year or two keeps water and soap from etching it. Avoid harsh acidic cleaners, since they dull the polish over time. The dark brown wall hides marks better than the pale beige floor, which shows every splash until it dries. If low upkeep matters more than the look, a marble-effect tile mimics this at a fraction of the fuss.

The stone is the biggest line here. Full marble on the walls and floor costs more than tiles, both for the material and the skilled fitting a slab needs. The vessel basin, the one-piece toilet and the chrome mixers are mid-range and easy to source at different budgets. If you love the look but not the bill, run marble only on the one feature wall and use a good marble-effect tile everywhere else. That single move saves the most money.

It adapts well to a small room. The open shower with no glass box is exactly what a tight bathroom wants, since a partition eats floor and makes it feel boxed in. Keep the one dark feature wall for depth and tile the rest to save money and weight. A wall-hung basin instead of the counter unit would free up a little more floor. The main thing to get right is the drainage slope, so the open floor drains fast.