12 amazingly beautiful shower designs

Layout is key, however the effect making a statement with functional features is never wasted. In this renovated cottage bathroom, the look is modern in monochrome with a bold, black-framed shower screen taking centre stage to compliment the black vanity and offset an otherwise all-white setting. Classic styling in brass tapware and towel rail pop against the textured white subway tiles on the walls.

Photography: Helen Ward

Walk-in shower designs without doors call for planning to protect wet areas surrounding the shower zone. This family bathroom ticks all the boxes with floor-to-ceiling tiles, a small niche to keep body products handy and has the tapware positioned at a comfortable distance away from the shower head to adjust water temperature before stepping under the spray.

Photography: Louise Roche / Styling: Kylie Jackes

The light, bright finishes in this crisp, curvy bathroom is testament to the fact that shower designs for seniors needn’t be ugly and cumbersome. An open plan design with a moulded bench seat allows for comfort and easy access without trip hazards.

Photography: Louise Roche / Styling: Kylie Jackes

Shower over bath designs call for careful planning too. Consider oversplash of water and placement of your drainage. A classic clawfoot bath takes up premium floor space and requires room around it for cleaning and plumbing. Have the drain placed and the ‘fall’ of the floor directed to a corner hidden beneath your bath.

Photography: Cath Muscat / Styling: John Mangila

Small bathroom shower designs can be challenging so it makes sense to double up on functionality where possible. The overhead shower in this Hamptons-style beach house bathroom allows for quick washdowns after the beach, or long relaxing soaks any time of day.

Many bathroom shower designs are led by access to plumbing. With all your fixtures lined up along one wall, it becomes more straightforward. Space is also optimised without corners to be filled. Here, fittings graduate from narrow to wide towards to back wall, with the bath spanning the entire width of the wall furthest away.

Floor-to-ceiling marble streamlines this contemporary Gold Coast bathroom and shows how shower designs with bench seats built-in can make for easy showering at any age. It also removes the need for seating elsewhere in the bathroom.

Photography: John Downs / Stylist: Kylie Jackes

Shower designs for bathrooms can become part of the aesthetic mix by incorporating the entire room into the design story. In the contemporary extension of this period home in Melbourne, a black-frame shower screen divides the wet zone while picking up on flecks in the terrazzo flooring, yet frames a vignette on the timber shelf beyond.

Photography: Shania Shegedyn / Stylist: Alana Langan

Shower tile designs continued throughout the entire space results in a sleek, cohesive look, like in this mid-century modern-style bathroom. The hexagonal shape adds interest and wraps from the floor up the wall where a skylight directly above the shower floods the space with natural light.

Photography: Simon Whitbread / Styling: Lisa Hilton

The best shower designs for couples are those that don’t appear to be so. In this modern country farmhouse bathroom, the clever use of seaglass blue feature tiles surrounding the wet zone makes a feature of the freestanding bathtub and allows simultaneous sue of more than one shower at a time.

Photography: Louise Roche / Styling: Kylie Jackes

Walk-in shower designs remove the need for shower screens to clutter up the space, such as with this Hamptons style ensuite that concentrates pattern underfoot and keeps things white above floor-line, making a feature of the porthole-style window.

Photography: Suzi Appel / Stylist: Beckie Littler

Bathroom shower ideas sometimes come from necessity, such as with the bulk-head in the ceiling of this shower stall. Using a frameless glass shower screen from wall-to-wall doesn’t box it in and all surrounding surfaces are kept white. A choice of slimline vanity is the key feature here.