We all know the familiar groan-inducing scenario: You step out of the shower in the morning feeling refreshed. You reach for your towel on its allotted hooks beside the tub, only to realise it’s on the OTHER side of the bathroom. Your phone buzzes annoyingly, but it’s just out of reach. “ARGHHHHH WHY ARE MY THINGS SO FAR AWAY FROM ME???? ?” I thought.
It was then that I knew my bathroom shelves were cursed. Disclaimer: when I say my bathroom shelves were cursed, I don’t mean Pinterest-worthy cursed. I mean THROW YOUR BODY WASH AGAINST THE WALL every.single.time cursed.
My bathroom was not ugly by any stretch. White walls, plenty of natural light.
It functioned…sort of?
I had half-heartedly hung a couple towel bars, shoved my hair dryer in a nearby bedroom drawer since there was nowhere else to put it, and tossed my basket of beauty products on the bathroom floor. Nothing was organised where I would grab it in my rushed morning or nighttime routine. The shelves themselves were sparse but awkwardly placed, with nowhere to put stuff but littered throughout the room.
The medicine cabinet was so narrow I needed tweezers to grab anything from it. My shampoo and conditioner were perched precariously on the edge of the tub shelf and fell. Every.
Single. Day. I needed to add shelves to my bathroom.
But where? How? And what would I actually put on them?
Let me tell you a little bit about what I learned along the way. First of all, bathroom shelves are hard. When you think about shelving anywhere else in your home, it’s pretty simple: You want accessible storage wherever you need it.
In the bathroom, oh man. Do you put shelves in the shower? Near the sink?
Around the toilet? At eye level or above? Below?
After building, buying, drilling into, painting, smashing, and purchasing every type of shelf known to mankind ( okay, fine we haven’t purchased every shelf…but we have purchased a lot of shelves), I’ve learned some things along the way. Here’s what works for us… Floating shelves. Now listen, floating shelves can be fabulous.
I have some in my laundry room that I adore. But when it came to the bathroom, they were frustrating. My first attempt was three skinny white shelves hovering over my toilet.
Hint: if you’re going to put shelves around your toilet, make sure you can actually use them. Shelf number one: Things fell off of them. ALL THE TIME.
The beauty of floating shelves is you can style them in a way that looks super trendy with no lip on the edge of the shelf. The downside? EVERYTHING FALLS OFF.
Also, bathrooms tend to have more Splashback (technical term) around toilets. I watched helplessly as my expensive facial moisturizer developed tiny water stains all over the gorgeous jar. Learn from my mistake and DON’T PUT THINGS ON SHELVES DIRECTLY AROUND YOUR TOILET THAT CAN BE DAMAGED BY WATER.
Another side effect of hanging shelves around the toilet? They ended up way too high for me to reach without launching into an elaborate yoga stretch. Everything I liked to grab frequently was still on the floor.
That being said, I didn’t give up on floating shelves altogether. Pro tip: place your floating shelves around areas you’d like to style, NOT where it would be convenient to grab things. I ended up moving my floating shelves around my sink, about eye level.
This puts them far away from extra water, but also makes them convenient to grab if I need something. Now they house facial oils I like to adorn myself with after rinsing my face, a small pot of pothos, and a cute ceramic dish to hold jewellery or rings. The key is using little glass containers with lids to corral anything else you need to keep dry.
Built-In Niches Are Magical Although this was not my original plan, these might be my favourite shelves in the whole bathroom. When we were renovating and updating our bathroom, my contractor mentioned we could add a built-in niche in our shower wall. The walls were already being torn up, so it would be an easy add-on!
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Um, easy for you to say, Mister Contractor. It took an extra week of him CUTTING INTO STUDDATAENDDAMAGING WIRING (true story) and waterproofing to get this bad boy done. But y’all.
It was SO WORTH IT. The niche is the perfect depth to fit full-sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash without having to reach up high or bend down low. I designed it to be right about shoulder height.
The bottom of the niche is angled, so when water spills down your body, it runs off instead of pooling. And the interior of the niche is finished with the same ceramic tile as my shower walls, so it doesn’t look “added on” like an afterthought! The whole point of a shelf or storage area in the shower is to prevent droplets of water from EVERYWHERE landing on your feet.
Necessity showers included! I no longer have to worry about massive bottles of conditioner falling on my toes (Owyyy) or balancing on one foot while lathering up my body wash then hopping over to the shower head to rinse it off. And don’t get me started on the mysterious ring of soap scum that would develop on the edge of the tub shelf.
Gone, bathroom shelves, gone. The Ladder Shelf? TORTURE.
If you follow me on Instagram or Pinterest, you’ve probably seen ladder shelves ALL OVER the place. I loved the idea of them, so I bought this adorable wooden ladder shelf and stained it to match my vanity. I stylized it with cute hand towels and hung it on my bathroom wall next to the door.
It LOOKED SO GOOD. Here’s the thing about ladder shelves though… They suck. Okay, that’s a little dramatic.
Unless you want to enjoy your ladder shelf, they kind of suck. Here’s what I mean. The bottom shelf collects every strand of hair and dust bunny in the universe.
I kid you not. The spacing between shelves isn’t ideal for many bathroom necessities either. You have to curate SUPER SPECIFICALLY what goes ON the shelves based on the spacing.
You know how towels look amazing hung all throughout a ladder shelf? They look amazing for… maybe a day. Because y’all WILL USE THEM.
Then they start to look ridiculous cluttered all over your pretty ladder shelf. Wiping down the shelves between all those cracks? Good luck with that.
Moral of the story? I loved the idea of ladder shelves, but they didn’t work with my lifestyle. So we switched it out for an actual cabinet with doors.
Less stylish? Hell yes. But way more functional.
Stocking Bathroom Shelves The moral of this entire post is “it depends”. What I keep on my shelves depends on what I use daily, where I use it, and how often I want to actually see it. Here are a few simple guidelines we used when stocking our shelves: – What do I reach for every.single.day?
Keep these things by the sink or shower where you’ll use them. For us, that included our toothbrushes, face wash, and hand towels. – What items do I use every day but don’t necessarily need to grab while I’m busy washing my hands or washing my hair? We keep our lotion by the shower so we can easily grab it when we step out.
But other extras like spare Q-tips, cotton pads, and hair tools went on higher shelves since we don’t NEED to grab them mid-shower. – Anything I don’t use daily lives either up high or in cabinets with doors.
Backup hair supplies, toilet paper, bathroom cleaners – if you don’t NEED to grab it every day, it doesn’t belong on easy-access shelves! – Use clear jars and bathroom organizers inside your drawers and shelves to keep smaller items neat and tidy. Drawer dividers were life-changing for my makeup section.
Small glass pump bottles tucked away hidden moisture-y ingredients that came in bulky containers. You get the idea. – Temperature and humidity play a bigger role in bathroom storage than you might think. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.
I had a bottle of vitamin C serum that turned completely orange and chunky because it was stored in my hot, humid bathroom. If you have any skincare products that are sensitive to temperature, keep them stored safely outside of the bathroom! There you have it.
What NOT to put on your bathroom shelves, plus some ideas that actually work for us! I hope this post has inspired you to rethink your storage strategy AND given you a few new ideas to try as well. Happy showering!
XOXO
