Morning routines used to make me bananas. The clamor of two toothbrushes hitting the same pint-sized container. Husband snagging his razor across my leg while I attempt to apply mascara.
Dodging one another like bumper cars. Our master bath was about 32 square feet. Edit: It still is.
And let me tell you something. Most coat closets I’ve walked into are more stylishly efficient than our bathroom was.
When we moved into our house two years ago, I knew the bathroom had to work harder.
We aren’t expanding the square footage any time soon, but I could maximise every inch of storage, switch out fixtures, and arrange the room in a way that made sharing 32 square feet with your spouse feel civilized. It all started when I stopped trying to create one bathroom for two people. Instead, I optimised every inch for two distinct halves.
It sounds so simple, but the pieces clicked once I separated the space mentally. Mirrors, Storage, and Vanities We had a builder basic 24-inch vanity with a single sink that was too big for the space. I didn’t want to install a double sink vanity because the sinks would be tiny – difficult to use and not very charming.
So I switched it out for a beautiful 36-inch wide single-bowl vessel sink that we actually use, and created clear delineations of “his” and “hers” storage on each side. My favourite bathroom storage hack? Magnetic strips taped to the inside of our medicine cabinet doors.
It’s one of those grandparent-shaped ideas that sounded ridiculous until I tried it. Anyone that knows me knows I love magnets. All of my curling irons and tweezers have tiny magnets in them.
So everything with a metal latch or surface adheres to these magnetic strips and doesn’t rattle around in a drawer somewhere. My husband’s safety razor hangs nicely from the magnetic strip as do all of my cuticle tools. Genius.
I installed pull-out drawer organizers ($12 at IKEA each) beneath the sink too so instead of rooting around in a dark hole to find cotton swabs, we each have a drawer that houses all of our bathroom supplies separately. Showers Our shower wasn’t any bigger than our bathroom. Thirty-two inches of builder basic bliss.
Trying to do two people’s showers in that tiny space required some creativity. I couldn’t add shelves on the diagonal like I wanted to because everything would autumn in the drain. So instead, I utilised a tension pole shower caddy with multiple shelves attached that spans from the floor to the ceiling in the corner.
Each shelf has a “his” or “hers” section so his shampoo and body wash lives on the centre shelf at grabbable height, and my ridiculous assortment of twelve different hair serums live on the higher shelves. I also upgraded to a handheld shower head on a slide bar so we could each have the shower at an appropriate height without having to constantly move it. Bonus: cleaning the shower is infinitely easier when you can spray every inch of the wall!
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His Stuff Shower Head Slider Mount Toilet PaperStorage!! ! I purchased this handheld shower head ($89) from our local plumbing warehouse and installed it myself. (Hey, I watched three YouTube videos and didn’t flood the bathroom on the first try.) It has made shower time way less stressful because we don’t have to back out when the other person needs to rinse off. Instead, we each brush our teeth while the other person showers and afterwards, the handheld makes it super easy to rinse down the shower walls.
Another small thing I noticed made a big difference? Towel storage. Previously we had one tiny towel bar that could fit maybe… two bath towels if you were strategic in your folding.
I switched it out for a leaning ladder-style towel rack ($45 at our local furniture warehouse) that holds six towels and still takes up zero floor space. It’s SO much easier to keep our bathroom towels folded nicely on this than stuffing them on a tiny bar. Lighting The most impactful update was the lighting.
The builder basic shower/bathroom came with one of those Hollywood mirrored-lighting fixtures with dangling bulbs. Ugh. Nothing makes you look more uneven than bad lighting while you’re trying to shave or put on mascara.
So that light went bye-bye. Instead, I installed an LED strip light underneath a floating shelf I built ($30 in materials) above the mirror, and two decorative sconces on either side of the mirror. The lighting beneath the shelf serves as excellent task lighting because it lights up your face with no shadows.
The sconces on either side help illuminate the rest of the room and make it feel larger. (The entire light upgrade was about $180 and I installed all of it myself. Well, I had an electrician friend come over and give the wiring jobs his blessing because I’m adventurous, not insane.) The mirror itself was two separate mirrors hung next to each other instead of one large one. Two mirrors gives us each our own space to tackle beauty routines without crowding each other.
It also made the wall seem larger by breaking up one large expansed surface. Storage Speaking of storage, the floor was too precious to waste any of it. Instead, I went vertical whenever possible.
I found a tall, skinny cabinet that tucked into the corner next to the toilet.
It’s only about 8 inches deep, but 68 inches tall. Perfect for storing all of our extra toilet paper, bath mats, and towels.
Anything we don’t need daily but still needs to be in the bathroom. Lastly, colour palette. I tried to stick to all white or creamy white and warm grays with brass fixtures.
Having all of the fixtures and accents be the same metal tied the room together. To this day, I can’t stand it when you see a black fixture with a gold one right next to it. If you’re working with a small space, keep your metals matched!
And the finishing touch? A bluetooth shower speaker ($25) mounted on the wall. We can listen to whatever playlist we want while getting ready, and it avoids the pile-of-phones-on-the-counter situation that always ends up with water ruined technology.
