Organized Bathroom Ideas

Whether your bathroom is large, small or in between, these bathroom organization tips will help you organize various bathroom necessities in an attractive and useful way.

• Move a bookshelf into your bathroom to allow extra room for mixing decorative bath items with everyday, useful items.
• Take an old wooden ladder, tip it against the bathroom wall and attach with brackets. Add wider pieces of wood to the steps for additional shelf space or for displaying decorative items.
• The addition of a travel chest or trunk to the bathroom can be a wonderful accent piece and a very useful place to store spare towels or linens.
• If your space allows it, consider incorporating a cushioned bench with storage inside for added comfort and space.
• Repurpose a nightstand with drawers for additional storage space. Assign a drawer to each family member so they can easily store their bathroom-related belongings. You can dress up the drawers by adding personalized monograms or a picture of each person.

Organization for Small Bathrooms

• Create one basket that contains items you use every day that can be stored away in a linen closet or under the sink for easy access.
• Hang a mirror on the back of the bathroom door or the inside of the medicine cabinet to create an additional space for more than one person in the bathroom at a time.
• Over-the-commode shelving is a great space saver and beautiful, inexpensive shelving options are widely available for purchase. Or you can try this idea:
  
  
  1. Inexpensive L-brackets with pieces of wood/press board cut to custom size for your space. Wood/press board can even be covered in fabric or contact paper to accent your bathroom décor.
• For a sink with no cabinetry underneath, attach a strip or hook and loop tape to the underside of the sink. Affix the matching piece of tape to a piece of fabric chosen to accent your bathroom décor and cut to size. Fabric will create the look of a skirt around the sink and provide space to arrange baskets for cleaning supplies, extra rolls of toilet paper or a small trash can.

• Use apothecary or similar glass jars to store cotton products. It’s a decorative and less cumbersome solution that lets you know when you’re getting low on supplies. Your guests will also know exactly where to find these items.
• Organize towels by color, size and type. If you’re crunched for space, try storing extra or seldom-used towels in a guest room closet or on a shelf in the mudroom.
• If you have an especially busy bathroom, create a family bathroom schedule so everyone can use the bathroom in (relative) harmony.

All products have a lifetime of use that allows them to be most effective. Once this period of time is up, they may not work properly, but most importantly can become contaminated. To avoid complications, follow these tips to make sure what you’re storing and using is safe.

• General Rule: all makeup and hair products should be used within three years of leaving the factory. Normally, the back of the product is labeled with a coded date or you can label your products with a permanent marker (so it won’t rinse off) when you purchase items with a “safety” 18 months from the purchase date. Label this directly onto the back of the bottle or container, so you can easily tell when it’s time to toss.
• Natural or organic products: These typically have a shorter life, because they do not contain preservatives. Try using these products within 3-12 months.
• Makeup brushes: Keep them clean by periodically washing in warm, soapy water. Let air dry on a towel and they will fluff up like new!
• Keep it cool: All makeup, hair products and medicines should be stored in a cool, dry and dark place away from sunlight, humidity and heat. Try using colored, dark plastic bins or decorative baskets that keep direct sunlight from getting into the bottles.

• As a general rule, start with the top and work your way down—for example start with the shower walls and work down to the tub.
• The sink should be the very last thing to be cleaned, because you will use it throughout the cleaning process.
• Try keeping a bath caddy of every item you need to clean your bathroom under the sink. That way everything is right there when you need it, and it’s easy to do a quick touch up for unexpected guests.
• If you have a small space and no place to keep a bath caddy, consider a caddy placed somewhere else which contains all products you use to clean the entire house. To keep cleaning tools separate, only use one color of sponge for the bathroom and label gloves for the bathroom with the letter “B.”

And remember, cleaning as you go is the key to achieving bathroom organization! Always put your bathroom items back where they came from after each use and encourage your family to do the same. Then, do a quick once a week clean up to save yourself from long cleaning routines.