I visited my friend Sarah last Tuesday and as I stood in her bathroom with a toothbrush in my mouth, I found myself wondering, “Where in the hell am I going to put this when I’m done?” Between the sink counter (eight inches wide at most), and the stuffed-to-bursting medicine cabinet, there was literally nowhere for me to stash my toothbrush. At which point I got annoyed on her behalf. Listen, I don’t have the biggest bathroom in the world (my bathroom is basically a phone booth – if phone booths still existed).
But I have spent the last few years living with the same tiny bathroom learning the ropes and discovering space-saving storage ideas that keep me from totally losing my shit every morning. Whenever I find myselfSarah’s predicament also made me appreciate all the genius tricks I’ve come across during my years of tight-space living. Because while a small bathroom can be frustrating at times, there are clever organizational systems and tricks for making the most of every nook and cranny.
You just have to know where to look. One of the first genius tricks I used when I moved into my current flat three years ago was to exploit my bathroom door.
I bought a couple of narrow wire shelves from the hardware store and mounted them on the inside of my bathroom door to store everything from cleaning products to toilet paper.
Only cost me about ten bucks, and it was the best decision I ever made when it came to bathroom storage. Pro tip: cheap plastic over-the-door organizers are the worst. The first organizational accessory I clipped onto my bathroom door was some sort of expandable plastic pocket contraption that I thought looked great online.
It sucked. Realistically, the pockets were too shallow and every time someone (ahem, roommates) shut the door, bottles would autumn out. Now I only buy metal over-the-door organizers with thick pockets and hooks that distribute weight more evenly.
They’re less flimsy, have a less DIY look, and can actually withstand normal usage. If you have bathroom corners, USE THEM. Seriously.
I have this skinny corner shelf unit that’s maybe six inches deep and perfectly fits between my toilet and vanity. I keep all my skincare essentials on it – facial cleanser, toner, moisturizer, etc. It’s so nice to have my everyday items all neatly within reach at eye level instead of stuffed in a drawer somewhere.
Look for slimmed-down corner shelves that are actually meant to be used in small spaces. The ones that don’t take up much depth. I originally tried to DIY some sort of floating shelf in the corner, but holy heck is it difficult to measure angles to make something look like it actually fits in the corner.
Mine sat leaning crooked for months until I finally gave up and bought one that was meant for the job. Start stacking things vertically. Once I realised I couldn’t spread things out horizontally, I started thinking up.
I installed a skinny, floor-to-ceiling shelf unit that houses almost everything I couldn’t fit on the counter. Reserve your top shelf for stuff you use once a week or less. Keep daily or every-other-day items at eye level.
Bottom shelf is for when you’re rushing out the door. The whole thing is maybe a foot wide, but I think it tripled my storage space. Suction cup shelves might seem like a good idea, but trust me, they’re not.
I bought some for over my sink so that I could have extra countertop storage. Worked well for… a week. Things start to slide down whenever you open the cabinet too hard because – physics!
They’ve also popped off completely in the middle of the night before, leaving me to awkwardly crawl across the sink to pick up fallen bottles of shampoo at 6 a.m. Sure, shelving that mounts on suction cups costs less than variants that use hard mounts, but it’s not worth the frustration. Or the danger, let’s be honest.
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Mount a cabinet over your toilet. The wall space over your toilet is useful square footage that most people don’t take advantage of. I mounted a narrow cabinet over my toilet to house extra rolls of toilet paper, towels, all-purpose cleaner, you name it.
The cabinet itself is literally just a piece of wood I had cut to size and painted white. It blends right into the wall. The hardest part is ensuring that it’s not so deep that you’ll bump your head every time you stand up.
Not speaking from experience or anything. There are shelf inserts that mount on the inside of your cabinet that help you make use of the space underneath your sink. The space under my sink is tiny because I have a pedestal sink, but I found this expanding shelf that clips onto the cabinet and creates a top and bottom shelf, minus the pipes in the way.
They’re not the most attractive shelves, but I hid them behind a small shower curtain and now I had somewhere to put all my extra supplies. Use a magnetic strip to hold small metal objects. I bought a magnetic strip to keep inside my medicine cabinet to hold bobby pins, nail clippers, tweezers, and other metal items that would otherwise be lost at the bottom of the drawer.
The best part? Everything holds really nicely on the magnetic strip. Having stuff effortlessly snap into place is oddly satisfying.
Look for storage in unexpected places. Don’t discount your shower as a place to stash supplies, either. I tried one of those expandable shower-goods organizers on a tension pole, but they never stayed flush against the wall of my shower like they were supposed to.
Long story short, this expandable shower shelf that kind of hangs over the edge of my shower door is pure magic. It stores my shampoo, conditioner, and body wash without encroaching on any of my actual shower space. Use drawer organizers.
You don’t need deep drawers to organise your supplies. Expandable drawer organizers allow you to section off however much drawer space you have. My bathroom drawer went from a cluttered mess of random nonsense to actually feeling organised once I inserted one of these bad boys.
When you section off certain areas for certain items, you can actually fit more than when you just toss everything in.
Swap out your light fixture. The one upgrade that didn’t add any visible storage but still made a world of difference was switching out my light fixture.
I actually removed the builder-basic dome light that was installed and replaced it with two wall-mounted lights on either side of my bathroom mirror. It didn’t create any new storage, but it helped my bathroom feel a little less cramped and cave-like. Which honestly does make a difference when you’re staring at a tiny room full of storage tricks all morning long.
Take it slow. When I first moved into my flat I went a little crazy with the storage ideas. My bathroom felt more like the stock room at Walgreens than a relaxing space to kick back and take a shower.
Now I focus on storing only what I use on a daily basis and keep excess products stored somewhere else in my flat. Sometimes less really is more. Your mileage may vary but these are the tricks that helped me squeeze every last drop of storage space out of my teeny bathroom.
The key is to utilise all available surfaces, think vertically if you can’t horizontically, and spend the extra cash on good mounting hardware instead of cheap crap that’ll drive you insane.
