Seven years ago when we moved into this house I knew immediately what my biggest challenge would be, the bathrooms. There are two but as evidenced by this post, they are very small. When we first moved in it was pretty easy to keep them tidy, but over time the clutter builds up. Whether it’s a product I wanted to try, travel goods, or seasonal items, they all find a way to make it into the bathroom at some point or another. So this week I decided to tackle the bathroom clutter for good. Today I’m sharing some of my tips for cleaning out the bathroom, as well as some words of advice for living with a small space bathroom.
I didn’t want to share this, but I think it’s important that you know what I started with. Our bathrooms are incredibly small and somehow all of these extra things snuck their way in. Some of them are even empty and are definitely not living up to the better life I had envisioned for them. I removed (and you should too):
- Products I bought to try and didn’t end up loving.
- Stuff I received as gifts and didn’t end up loving.
- Items I don’t use on a day-to-day basis.
- Products (Hey bath salts!) I made and don’t like or use regularly.
- Duplicates of any product, whether I use it regularly or not.
- Travel-size items. I have a separate area for those.
- Items I only use for a certain season (Here’s your place, sun stuff!)
- Products that are expired (Ugh, whyyyyy?)
- All makeup products. This may change later.
- Tools not used on a daily basis like the blowdryer or shavers.
- Stuff that does not aesthetically bring me joy.
So you see, it added up to a basket-full of in-the-wrong-place goodness. Plenty of it was tossed or donated, while others found their place somewhere else in the house. I have a basket in my linen closet for duplicates or backups of products we love and use. I moved the stuff we always use but isn’t pretty to inside the medicine cabinet. Travel items moved to their basket in the linen closet too. I felt pretty guilty cleaning it all out, as most of it was so well-intended but just never got put to use.
That left me with this. And some of what is left still has a mental remove note on it, but for now I am happy. I plan to add a Command Clear Caddy to the inside of my medicine cabinet to hold items like Q-tips and maybe a couple of makeup items. I keep a belly basket on the floor with spare towels, an extra shower mat, my blowdryer, and a brush inside. My perfumes and makeup were moved to the dresser in my closet, along with my curling rod and straightener. I moved his shaver to a small organizer in my husband’s dresser, which also includes the charger. The toothbrushes were moved to a cup inside the medicine cabinet. I do have one exception for extras in the bathroom, which is that I keep spare toilet paper rolls in a toilet paper roll sized clear vase, a trick I learned a long time ago from Sherry & John.
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More tips for small space bathrooms:
- Use a wall mounted shelf to get extra storage above a toilet or on the wall.
- Get rid of what you don’t use every day, scroll up to see the 11 items you can move out of your bathroom now.
- Stick with a light color palette, it makes the room look cleaner, brighter, and lighter.
- Place a basket on the floor to store extra towels if you need to.
- Only display items that bring you joy, hide others away in a basket or medicine cabinet.
- Use the remove and replace method if you have a hard time culling on your own. Remove all items and put them in a box outside your bathroom. When you need something, take it in and after a week, that’s what stays.
- Remember, those pretty Aesop bottles can be refilled and reused if you’d like. When we stayed in Iceland the rental owner giggled as he told us he refills the Aesop handwash dispensers with other liquid soap.
- If you don’t use it daily, it’s worth storing elsewhere.
- Keep the floor as clear as possible, anything you don’t absolutely need is visual clutter.
- Hooks on the wall take up less space than a towel rack.
- Consider spaces for storage that you hadn’t before, like the inside of your medicine cabinet mirror or door.
- You can even replace the back of your medicine cabinet with a magnetic piece (like metal) so that you can use magnetic spice tins for smaller items like bobby pins or hair bands.
- If you have a narrow entry and it looks good visually, consider adding a shelf above the door to add storage space.
- If you are lucky enough to have under-sink storage, consider using storage drawers to better organize it.
- Keep your countertops visually free of clutter. When they have less on them, the room looks more open.
- This one is likely obvious, but keep the room tidy! When everything is in the right spot, it will feel more relaxing.
- Carve a spot for yourself. Borrowed from my lux bathroom post, be sure to keep a little something in there for you as well. I keep bath salts on the top shelf of my wall shelves to remind me to make time for me.
- If you can, add some plant life to your bathroom for decor. Not only will it clean the air, it makes it feel more homey and less sterile. I had to remove my plant because it got too tall for it’s home in the bathroom, but I plan to replace it soon!
- Don’t store extras! If you have backups for when you run out of favorites, keep them elsewhere like a spare dresser drawer.
- Pay attention to cohesiveness of the room. When everything matches it will have a more clean and minimal feeling.
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What are some of your tips for a small space bathroom? Anything I can improve on? I’d love to hear!
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