How To Organize Specific Areas of Your Bathroom

Posted on February 20, 2009 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Organization,Techniques

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As part of my on-going series on how to organize certain areas of your home, I published an article on how to organize your bathroom. This spawned the question, “Yes, but how do I organize (x) within the bathroom?”. In this article, I’m going to give an overview of how I organize things in my space.

I apologize to my male readers for the digression into organizing cosmetics, but you might be able to apply the principles.

I am going to tackle five areas in this article: cosmetics, nail supplies, hair appliances, backup supplies and the vanity.

Organizing Cosmetics

Back in the early 90′s I had a great little case that held all my cosmetics. Made by Caboodles, it held everything in one place. Each type of item had a specific place in the case. I no longer have the case, but I use the same sort of organizational methods inside a drawer in the bathroom. I separate the type of cosmetic, and put them in little baskets I purchased from the dollar store. The baskets are low enough to hold things on end in the drawer, but still allow the drawer to close.

Organizing Nail Supplies

I keep everything for my nails in one place. All boards, buffers, polishes and creams reside in an old baby wipe container. The container is tall enough to have the bottles stand upright, and long enough to hold the boards easily. This stays under my sink and comes out when I need to use it.

Hair Appliances

I don’t have appliances I don’t use regularly. So I have one hair drying/diffuser, and one hair dryer/curling brush. Another basket from the dollar store holds these underneath the sink, and gets pulled out every morning for use.

In our old house, we kept the dryer plugged in to a wall unit away from the sinks and used a hook to hold the dryer when not in use. That’s not an option in this house, where the only outlets are right next to sinks.

Backup Supplies

Nothing is more maddening to me than to run out of soap or shampoo and not have any more in the house. I keep a backup supply of our regularly used products in another basket on the floor of the closet. The basket keeps everything upright, and I can pull it out quickly to see what is needed.

Keeping Things Neat on the Vanity

We all have things we use every day. And honestly, I don’t see the point in putting something away if I am going to use it again in twelve hours. The things that live on our vanity include hair gel, deodorant, saline solution and hand lotion. But the tubes and bottles will multiply given a chance. In order to keep things looking neat, and to give me an easy way to clean, we have a pretty cloth-lined wicker basket on the vanity. It’s tall enough to hide most of the bottles, and when I need to clean, I just move one item.

The Concepts Behind the Organization

What all of these examples boil down to are the following concepts:

1. Keep like things together, either by type or purpose.
2. Use baskets and containers to keep things grouped.
3. Get rid of what you don’t use.
4. Don’t try to keep the cats out of the sink. It won’t work.

Photo by kretyen

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