Before anything about size or subject, the honest part: a bathroom is the worst environment in the house for a paper print. Steam is the problem, and it is worth understanding what it actually does before you hang anything.
What humidity does to a print
Paper absorbs moisture from the air and expands. In an unframed print this shows as a gentle wave across the sheet within weeks. In a framed one it is slower but not harmless — moisture that gets behind the glass has no way out, and over a year or two it can leave the paper cockled or, in a badly ventilated room, spotted.
None of this means art in a bathroom is a bad idea. It means three things are worth doing:
- Frame it, with glass. An open print in a shower room will wave. This is the one room where framing is genuinely protective rather than decorative.
- Hang it away from the shower. The wall behind the door or beside the basin sees a fraction of the steam that the wall facing the shower does.
- Run the extractor. The same fan that protects your paintwork protects the print.
If your bathroom has no window and no extractor, buy the smaller sizes and treat them as replaceable rather than permanent.
Sizes that fit a small room
Bathroom walls are interrupted — by mirrors, cabinets, towel rails and tiling that stops at an arbitrary height. Usable space is usually a narrow column beside the basin or a strip above the toilet.
| Where | Format | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Above the toilet | 30×42 or 50×70 portrait | Bottom edge at least 25 cm above the cistern |
| Beside the basin | 21×30 or 30×42 | Splash range — keep 40 cm clear of the tap |
| Facing wall, larger bathrooms | 50×70 | Only if it is not the shower-facing wall |
The two smallest formats are A4 and A3; the larger ones are exact centimetre sizes rather than A-formats, which is set out in the poster size guide.
Fashion Brands Poster
Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany´s Poster
Yayoi Kusama Red Poster
Dior Dog Poster
Bulldog Dior Poster
Vintage Fashion
Height in a room you mostly stand in
Bathrooms are used standing, so the standard applies cleanly here: centre the art at 145 cm. The exception is above a toilet or a low cabinet, where you measure up from the object instead and leave 25 to 30 cm of clear wall. The full reasoning is in how high to hang art.
Tiling sets the horizontal line
Most bathrooms have a strong horizontal already — the top edge of the tiling, or a splashback. Art hung so its centre falls near that line fights it. Hang clearly above it instead, so the tile edge and the frame read as two separate bands rather than one muddled one.
Where you hang two or three small pieces above that line, keep the gaps equal and align the centres — the tile grid behind them makes any drift obvious. The gallery wall guide has the spacing.
Frames and the damp question
Oak and black are both fine in a bathroom; neither finish objects to humidity in the way the paper inside does. Because bathroom formats are small, the full colour range is also open to you — it stops at 50×70, which is at or above most bathroom walls. Browse the frames.
What suits the room
The bathroom selection is weighted towards the smaller formats for that reason.