When I lived with roommates, I kept all my bathroom items in my bedroom—towels on the back of my door, extra toiletries squirreled away at the top of my closet, Band-Aids in my nightstand—you get the picture. When I moved into a one bedroom apartment with my partner I was excited to fill up the medicine cabinet and vanity storage with all my things, only to find that they quickly fell into disarray just a few months later.
This year, I’m making it a point to keep the bathroom organized, because having deodorant tumble out onto my face while I’m just trying to reach for my toothbrush is getting a bit old. Luckily, I’ve tackled re-organizing my limited-storage bathroom and have some advice to share. Read on for 8 of my best tips for bathroom storage ideas from clever ways to stack extra hand towels to aesthetically pleasing toilet paper storage (yes, it’s possible!).
Toilet Paper
The bathroom comes with lots of necessities that aren’t exactly sexy to behold, toilet paper being one of them. I used to keep toilet paper hidden in the vanity cabinet, but I found that A. it was hard to reach when one of us needed more and B. it meant any guests who finished a roll would need to go through all of our other belongings to find it. I settled on stacking it into Wire Baskets next to the toilet, which keeps it within reach and somehow creates an attractive vignette. Plus, the green perfectly matches my shower curtain. If you have a wall-mounted vanity with space underneath, this is also a great place to stick some baskets filled with TP for you and your guests to easily reach.
Bath & Hand Towels
Clean towels are one of the quickest things to get out of hand in my bathroom. They come out of the wash, get folded, then shoved into the linen closet, just for the bottom towel to be yanked out from under the stack, disturbing the rest…and the cycle repeats. Since our linen closet is pretty tiny, I decided to roll our towels instead of folding them, and use Open Spaces x Tortuga Bookends to keep them nestled together. Cool, right? Another great place for towels (if you’ve got the square footage!) is the Entryway Rack, which can hold lots of folded or rolled towels, as well as bins, baskets, decor, and other supplies.
Medicines
We actually have a pretty large medicine cabinet, but we don’t store very much medicine in there, ironically. Instead, it houses toothbrushes, deodorants, shaving accessories, skin care, and any other odds and ends we don’t know what to do with. That leaves our actual medicines with no dedicated home, so I decided to put them all in a Medium Bin (with lid) under the sink for easy access. The bin conveniently stacks on top of others (more on that below) so I can put the medicines on top, and less reached-for items in the bottom bin.
Hair Appliances
Despite rarely doing my hair (as I work from home) I sure do have a lot of hair appliances, all of which used to be tossed under the sink when not in use, clumping into one big ball of wires. That said, I also knew that keeping them all in a lidded bin or basket would be a futile effort, so I decided to add a Shelf Riser under the bathroom sink, on top of which sits storage bins, and underneath, space has been cleared up for stacking my straightener, blowdryer, curling iron, etc.
Jewelry
While I do have a dedicated space for jewelry in my bedroom, it’s nice to be able to take off a few pieces before hopping in the shower and put them down in a Nesting Tray on the sink counter. This way, I’ll know exactly where they are when I get out, and I won’t have to worry about them sliding off into the sink and falling to their doom.
Extra Toiletries
I collect little bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc. wherever I go, because they’re so easy to use as travel toiletries themselves or fill back up with more product when it’s time for another trip. We also have the random extra bottle of face wash or toothpaste on hand, so I keep all these backups in a Small Bin (with lid) (stacked underneath the frequently used medicine bin) so they’re all together and I know exactly where they live.
Makeup Pads and Cotton Swabs
The Storage Gems are the most perfect place for keeping cotton or reusable makeup remover pads and cotton swabs at hand. I have them displayed on a floating shelf in my bathroom, because they’re so dang cute and they invite guests to take items as they need.
