Bathroom Organization Ideas

This post is sponsored by DYMO.  As always, all opinions are 100% my own.

With the return of back to school, also comes the return of our chaotic morning routine.  My youngest doesn’t really do too badly with getting ready in the morning, but I still have to constantly remind my oldest to make sure he does his hair and washes his face {and tucks in his shirt, and packs up his bag…}  In an attempt to make things run a little smoother, I made a few organization changes to our main bathroom.  With just a few little tweaks and some visual reminders, things have actually been going better this year – and are definitely much more organized!

For this bathroom organization project, I decided to tackle the bathroom cupboards and linen closet.  As with all organization projects, I started by completely emptying out the space and giving everything a good clean {I highly recommend doing this!}.  The bottom of our bathroom vanity was all scratched up and had a few stains that I couldn’t remove, so I lined it with some vinyl shelf liner that I picked up at Walmart.  I’m not usually a big fan of the shelf liners, but it made it look so much better and also helped the metal shelves {that I also just purchased!} stay in place.

One of the common issues with under the counter space is that there is often a lot of vertical storage space that is hard to utilize.  To make things even more awkward, our cupboards have this weird bar that runs right across the middle of the cupboard on each end of the vanity {I’m assuming the original owners were going to put in drawers?}.  I keep saying that we should just cut it right off, but knowing my luck, the whole thing would fall apart.  Anyways, I came across these little stackable shelves in the Ikea kitchen section.  They are intended for holding dinnerware but they were perfect for our bathroom to increase the vertical storage in the cupboards.

After purging all of the bathroom products that we no longer use, I sorted everything into categories and gave them each their own little bin {these were also from Ikea}.  These can easily be slid out and brought up onto the counter for use or you can just pull out what you need.

The last thing that I did was to label everything!!  The kids now know where everything is and know that they are expected to put everything back where they got it.  There are no excuses with everything being labeled!  It did take a few days of me walking them through everything, but they picked it up quite quickly and have been much better at cleaning up after themselves. {Now if only I could get them to keep the toothpaste in the sink rather than all over the walls and the mirror!}

I used my DYMO LabelManager to create these clear labels for all of the bins.  This label maker is super easy to use and I love that it has a regular QWERTY keyboard.  There are a variety of font styles as well as six font sizes {from 8 pt to 24 pt} to choose from.  I also love the option to add a box around your text – just a little detail that makes it a little more decorative!

I also used my DYMO to add a quick morning checklist on the inside of one of our cupboard doors.  I have tried to use other paper checklists in the past, but they always seemed to be being moved.  This one is not going anywhere and I have my fingers crossed that if they see this enough, it will soon start to become more of a habit for them!  For the face cloths, I used a couple of adhesive Elmer’s clips to attach them to the inside of the door so they would be quick to hang up – the clips work much better to hold the cloths than a hook does.

I continued all of my purging into the linen closet and, again, used the LabelManager to label all of my bins.

I have one wired bin for our bathroom cleaning supplies and another for our hand towels.

I also have a couple of smaller bins for the kids’ bath products {they can just pull this out when they are having a bath or a shower} and our larger first aid supplies.  For the most part, we still use our Boo Boo Box that I made a few years ago for the majority of our first aid items.

If you are tight on storage space, don’t forget about using the sides of your closet walls.  I stuck a couple of Command hooks on ours to hold the boys’ swimming bags.  It basically keeps their bathing suits, swim shirts, googles, and masks all in one place so all they need to do is grab their bag and a swim towel {which is in the bottom bin} when we are off to the pool.  Of course, I had to add a couple of more labels to make sure they know which hook is theirs!

Remember that organizing your bathroom doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. The main goal is to create a more functional space that is easier to use and simple to keep organized – just a few little changes can make a big difference in your daily routines!

For those of you that just want a quick recap…

1. Remove all items from the space.
2. Purge all items that you no longer use or love.  {Donate any items that are still in good shape}.
3. Sort all like items together and determine how you are going to store them.
4. Label, label, label so everyone knows where each item should be!  If you are looking for a great label maker, I highly recommend the DYMO LabelManager – it’s so easy to use and it’s light and portable so you can take it anywhere.  You might just become addicted to labeling! 😉

It doesn’t get much simpler than that!

For more bathroom organization and cleaning ideas, check out these posts…

DIY Bathroom Storage Ladder

 
How to Clean and Organize the Bathroom

How to Deep Clean the Bathroom