In addition to neatly stored items looking more attractive, they’re also easier to use. For instance, when you need a bandage or a cotton ball, you’ll know exactly where one is. An organized bathroom is also more relaxing and typically easier to keep clean. Compare a shower where shampoo bottles and soaps are falling on your feet to a shower where all the products you need are easily accessible in a caddy. Here are some tips for how to organize a bathroom, including how to organize bathroom drawers and cabinets, how to organize your bathroom counter, and bathroom organizer ideas.
Maintain Your Organized Bathroom
Once you organize your bathroom in a way that feels comfortable and functional, it should be easy to keep it up. But you will still need to put in a bit of effort. Return items to their proper places after using them, and don’t let items that belong elsewhere accumulate in the bathroom. This maintenance should be a simple part of your daily routine rather than a massive cleaning project. First, go through every storage spot where you keep bathroom products—including makeup, hair products, grooming tools, lotions, tissues and toilet paper, first-aid supplies, towels, and cleaning supplies—and put it all out in the open. Next, sort the products into three categories: keep, donate, and toss. Box up any donations, and toss other items in the trash or recycling immediately to get them out of your way. Then, sort the products you’re keeping into subcategories based on their type and where you plan to store them. For instance, if you have a lot of bulky towels or extra paper goods, you might need a piece of bathroom-friendly furniture, such as plastic storage drawers. And if you have lots of small items, such as makeup and hair elastics, stashed in your drawers, you might benefit from some small baskets to keep them tidy. Make sure you’re bringing in organizing products that fit your space and your items. This is key to make a small bathroom more functional. Otherwise, the organizers might become clutter themselves. First, determine what you want to store in the closet. Besides towels and washcloths, this might be a good spot for items you don’t need to keep readily accessible in the bathroom, such as extra tissues. Arrange everything in the closet so that the items you use most often are toward the front on shelves you can easily reach. You can group small items, such as washcloths, in a storage basket to make them easy to find. Make sure everything is neatly folded and stacked to maximize the space. beyhanyazar / Getty Images If necessary, add a shower caddy that fits your products. Any shower organizer you use should be reliably stable. Be wary of soap dishes or shelves that suction to the wall and towering caddies that claim to stand perfectly upright in the corner of the tub. They might not hold up to your everyday life. Also, if your shower or tub is packed full of products, consider streamlining your routine or at least storing rarely used items elsewhere. When you organize a bathroom sink area, always keep items closest to where they are used. For example, hand soap should go right next to the sink. You also might want to have hand lotion there or the product you use daily to wash your face. Cabinets under the sink are good for storing bathroom cleaning products in a caddy that you can easily take out and use. You also can use this space for extra bottles of shampoo, toothpaste tubes, and other products you don’t need every day. It can be helpful to put storage drawers within the cabinets to maximize vertical storage space. Drawer organizers can be instrumental to organize bathroom drawers. They can help to keep items classified and within easy reach. Remember you don’t have to fill every drawer, especially if you have the tendency to hide clutter in your drawers. Every drawer should have a designated purpose. A functional system to organize bathroom drawers can be to store everyday items in your top drawers and items you use less frequently in lower drawers. For instance, keep your everyday makeup brushes in a cup on your vanity where you can easily grab what you need. Keep tools you don’t use as often in a drawer or other storage spot. Where toiletries should be stored in a bathroom largely depends on use. And you don’t necessarily have to group all like toiletries together. For instance, you might have a tray of all your lotions and fragrances on your countertop but only use a few of them. To declutter and save precious counter space, move the ones you only occasionally use to a drawer or spot under the sink. Instead, consider acquiring smaller containers to keep some of the product in the bathroom. And store the rest elsewhere in a spot you can access periodically. For example, put some toilet paper in a basket on top of the toilet, and keep the rest stored on a high closet shelf elsewhere. Pouring your toiletries into a matching set of bottles also will give your bathroom a neat, streamlined look. Plus, you can choose bottles that perfectly fit on a ledge in your shower or in a bathroom organizer. Sometimes those bulky bottles the products come in don’t fit in shower nooks and medicine cabinets, or they end up taking up too much space in an organizer.
