When we moved into our house I used to play archaeological dig every morning in order to locate my tooth brush. Just the way our bathroom cabinet was organised was ridiculous. The fixed shelf was too high, so we’d put everything we could on the bottom shelf of our bathroom cabinet.
Everything then got shoved into dead space at the bottom. We joked that putting things in the bathroom cabinet was akin to them entering another dimension (I did find an almost full bottle of cough syrup from 2018 wedged behind the toilet roll at one point). I think subconsciously I felt like we needed more bathroom storage.
Perhaps an over toilet cabinet? Or maybe just a bigger corner unit?
But after renovating our entire house with basically zero budget I realised that the answer isn’t always to buy things.
Sometimes it’s about maximising what you already own. I was organising our kitchen cupboards for the umpteenth time when I had my lightbulb moment. Why was I storing my everyday moisturiser next to the shower gel in the same space as my once-a-month ‘emergency’ shampoo bottles?
The latter didn’t need to be seen or reached for every day. So I started to think of bathroom storage in terms of zones. What do you use everyday?
Which products do you use weekly? Filling the dead space and using bathroom storage ‘zones’ has made life so much easier. The first thing I did was adjust the shelves so that I could actually use that stupidly high shelf.
I felt mildly guilty at first, like I was destroying my furniture! But hear me out. The shelves are there for an ‘average’ person’s bottles and skin care.
They’re not necessarily designed for your very specific skin care needs and husband’s growing collection of beard oils. Most cabinets will have these little shelf pins covered by plastic caps. Took me about 10 minutes with a screwdriver to realign everything and I now had room to store my huge bottles of serum without that annoying gap at the top.
Drawer space is always at a premium in bathrooms – mine anyway. Thought clever I was for buying dividers, but the skinny serum bottles would always autumn over or get lost behind the bigger jars. The answer?
Tiered shelf risers. I sound like an infomercial don’t I? BUT STICK WITH ME.
They weren’t the flimsy plastic ones that will autumn apart if you look at them wrong. I got some metal tiered shelf risers that I picked up from my local kitchen suppliers. Only cost me £12 and they’ve been through 3 house moves and survived Danny dumping an entire bottle of aftershave onto them.
Now I have my serums on display on the top tier, with the cleansers on the next level down. Everything is visible and nothing gets lost in the abyss. Drawer dividers were my next obsession.
BUT bear with me. Those ones that come pre-organised? Are rubbish.
You will never have the correct size sections for what you actually own. It’s like they’re designed for this mythical person who has 3 matching mascara tubes. Go with an adjustable one with different section sizes.
I have super skinny areas for lip balms, medium for cotton pads and larges for all of my miscellaneous hair clips that I mysteriously receive each year. Measure your items first I say! You’ll curse me if you don’t.
Lesson learnt after spending 20 minutes with Danny’s hacksaw attempting to cut down dividers that were already too small. Pull out drawers seem like a dream until you get one of those plastic drawer kits that you can pop into your existing drawer. Yep, complete game changer.
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Not. They wobble about when you open them and if you put anything heavy inside they’ll slump down like a dejected pup. Trust me, just invest in the real deal.
Proper undermount drawer slides. They take a bit more effort to fit. You actually have to drill holes and – gulp- measure twice.
Once I’d climbed that learning curve though I now had drawers that pulled ALL the way out so I could see everything. Even the stuff I used to hide from myself at the back of the drawer. If you’ve got one of those corner cabinets, get yourself a lazy susan.
No – you don’t have to stick it in your spices like your mum. Pop it in the inside corner of your cabinet where you can barely reach. Pop all of your hair products on there.
Heat protectant, texturizing spray, that dry shampoo you love. Swivel the tray around and grab whatever you need. They work great for lots of things that aren’t easy to see like brushes and hair oils too.
Did you know you can fit shelves on the insides of cabinet doors? They’re ripe for the taking I tells ya. I popped a couple of thin wire shelves on mine for things I regularly use but wouldn’t necessarily want cluttering up my main shelves.
Nail file, tweezers, that mini hand cream you got on holiday. But please – don’t get carried away. I went ham once and overloaded one of my doors so much the hinges complained.
I had to replace the whole door. Don’t be like me. Those plastic tubes that roll all over the place whenever you try to get something out – face masks, I’m looking at you.
Sorting this problem out was a game changer for me. I store them in clear little containers now. Easy to see what you own, they stack to give you extra height when you need it and nest inside each other when you don’t.
And hey, if you’re really feeling kinky – you can pick up clear plastic containers that come with drawers. Where miracle storage Containers nowadays.. I used to hide all of my stuff away in closed cabinets.
Silly ol’ me. Thinks that everything would look neater and more ‘put together’. Nah pet, some things are just better off in open storage.
Especially if you use them multiple times a day. I fixed a floating shelf under my sink for the ‘must haves’. Face wash, moisturiser, toothbrush etc.
It frees up space on the counters but now I’m not violently wrenching open cabinets every morning like a crazy jack-in-the-box. Sprinkle a little bit of maintenance into the mix and you’re golden. Twice a year go through your entire cabinet.
Chuck anything that’s past it’s best, move things that have migrated to the wrong place and give your shelves a good wipe.
Should take you 15 minutes. But trust me it stops the slow decline back to chaos that happens when you leave it for ages.
Everyone’s bathroom storage needs will be completely different. What works for me and my extensive face oil collection may not work for you and your makeup brushes. Or if you have kids – goodness knows how you survive.
Start by thinking about how YOU use your bathroom. What do you reach for first thing in the morning? Group similar items together and store according to your routine.
Life will be so much easier. Now go forth and organise! Fingers crossed you can actually find your toothbrush come tomorrow morning.
