Bathroom Bliss Part 2

After our son was born, we had our mom's helping with laundry/putting things away, and we were too tired to put things back where they belong our selves, so our linen closet became organized by the "stuff things where they fit" method. I basically took everything out so I could put it back in with a plan. I also edited out what we put back in. We got rid of some things like our rusty old shower caddy that we haven't used since we moved in 3 years ago and expired medicines. By the time I was done, I had a brown paper grocery bag overflowing with trash.

The top shelf has less frequently used items like beach towels, extra crib sheets, nail polish, and a basket of hair accessories.

Below that, we have burp cloths, my "second bathroom drawer", a small basket with extra razor blades, a basket of medicine, and a basket of travel sized toiletries. The basket I refer to as my "second bathroom drawer" is a basket with a handle that I pull out while I am getting ready and then put back in the closet. It prevents a lot of items from cluttering up the counter. It holds things like my hairbrush, contact solution, and glasses case.

The third shelf down has some drawers that used to be below the sink where you couldn't even open the bottom one. They hold nail clippers, first aid items, and make up. The basket to the right of them holds extra items from packages that come with more than one. 

Then on the lower shelves we have towels, sheets, and cleaning supplies. I plan on putting a child proof door knob cover on this door once our son is opening doors on his own.

The sheets I have sorted in stacks by which bed they fit on. Towels are also sorted by size. I relocated the old towels we don't really use under the sink so that the ones we use fit in here. I still like to keep old towels around because they come in handy for cleaning up big messes.

The back of our bathroom door also needed a little help. We have these handy hooks from my college days, but too much stuff had accumulated there, including my Mary Kay travel bag I hadn't used since December. Now it holds just my winter and summer robes. I think the winter one was in the wash when I took this picture.

It was difficult to photograph under the sink, but it mainly holds less used items. I also tried to put baby safe items under there since it will be tricky to install child safety locks on all 4 cabinets due to the material they are made of and the fact that we are renters. So we have old towels and extra toilet paper under there, as well as our travel toiletry bags. There are no crazy chemicals or medicines for our son or cats to get into.

We have been doing a pretty good job of keeping our bathroom organized. Having things in places that make sense makes all the difference!

Do you have any tips for getting and/or keeping a bathroom organized? We would love to hear them!

Bathroom Bliss Part 1

Back in May, we completely reorganized our bathroom!

May
Master bathroom
Guest bathroom
Storage unit

Yes, I realize it is September now... I guess it took me a while to recover, ha ha. Deciding to stay in our current apartment for another year also slowed down or momentum for getting rid of junk before moving. Now that the "it's too hot to move" heat of summer will be leaving soon, we are hoping to create a new de-cluttering/organizing schedule and get it done!

First, I'm going to share a couple of ways we re-purposed items from our bathroom set we got for our wedding. We have a beachy/ palm tree theme going on in there.  This cute little umbrella toothbrush holder is great... only I have an electric toothbrush that doesn't fit in it and my husband doesn't like to leave his toothbrush sitting out. So, it's new job is makeup brush holder! I love how it keeps them handy and prevents excess makeup from building up in the drawer.

Our bathroom set also includes this cute little hammock soap dish... but we use liquid soap! Since my husband likes to remove his rings when he washes his hands, it became a ring hammock!

Making our bathroom more functional involved clearing off some of the items we had been storing on the counter, reorganizing our bathroom drawers, re-organizing all of the items under the sink and in the closet, getting rid of expired medicines and products, and putting away some of the stuff hanging on the back of the bathroom door. In other words, we did it all!

I had been wanting some kind of dividers to help our drawers stay in order, so I was excited when I found these plastic ones in the Dollar Spot at Target! My husband and I now each have one skinny one and one larger rectangle one. They are a huge help when it comes to keeping things in place, and I love the $2 price for all four. For my drawer, I mainly have makeup. I also store my toothpaste, floss, contact case, eye drops, and current favorite nail polishes in there.

The rest of my nail polishes and makeup were under the sink in boxes and not very easy to get to. I dug them all out and got rid of everything that was too old, dried up, or no longer my style. Then they were relocated to the linen closet for easier access!

Stay tuned for a post about what we did to get our closet and under the sink space organized coming soon.

Do you have any re-purposed items in your bathroom? Do you like things out where they are quick to grab or put away for a clutter-free space? Does your makeup collection still have old things like body glitter?!

Update and ideas

Since we decided to renew our lease one more year and our little one is becoming more mobile, our organizing/blogging pace has definitely slowed. We did tackle our master bathroom (post coming soon-ish) and make a little progress in the kitchen and guest bedroom during June.

Since our decision to renew our lease means we will have a 2-year old while still in this apartment (how is he almost one?!), we now have plans to do a major switch around to give our little dude his own room!

In the mean time, here are some of my favorite organization ideas I have come across recently.

 1) A DIY shower caddy using a second shower curtain rod. I love that you can customize with how ever many baskets you need. You could also use a second rod like this for hanging pool towels or clothes to drip dry over the tub.

If you know where this photo came from, please share! I found it on Pinterest with a dead link. :(

2) A Thousand Words blog,  has a great system for organizing photos.

3) 2 Little Hooligans has this clever idea for corralling gift wrapping supplies using a stool.

Do you have any great organization ideas you have discovered recently?

Guest Bath...Check!

Another room is completed!

May
Master bathroom
Guest bathroom
Storage unit

I decided to put our guest bedroom/closet on hold for now. It's crazy how much stuff we have to go through in that one room and I was losing momentum and becoming overwhelmed.

One of the main things I tackled in the guest bathroom was organizing the cabinet. Since I give our son baths in this room now, one of my goals was to make room for his towels, washcloths, and bath toys in here. It started off looking like this.

By getting rid of some things and relocating some things, I was able to clear off the top shelf completely! Then I gathered all of the baby wash cloths and towels from our overflowing linen closet and moved them in here.

I also gathered up all of the bath toys and put them in the bucket which just fit on the top shelf. The bottom shelf holds baby toiletries, lint rollers, and a few extra supplies for guests. This kid has enough shampoo/body wash to last until he's 10!

Mr. Babycito only uses a couple of bath toys at a time right now since we put his little tub inside the big tub. In between baths, his current bath toys hang out on the soap dish to dry.

And his tub hangs over the big tub to dry like this.

I re-purposed the basket that held bubbles at our wedding as an extra toilet paper holder. This helped free up some of the space in the cabinet. I love that the blue bow already matched the shower curtain and clock!

The drawer to the left of the sink is mostly empty. The one to the right holds some extra travel bags and a few things my mom leaves here so there is less to pack when she visits her grand baby. Once you have kids, your parents no longer visit you. It's all about the grand kids, ha ha.

I also organized under the sink. I threw away a very leaky silver polish and cleaned up its mess. Then I mainly just arranged things better. On the left we have the litter box lids that we don't use currently. On the right there's an extra scale, watering cans. And a trash can. I actually switched the too big round trash can under this sink with the too small square trash can in our master bathroom.

I am loving the results! Now it's time to tackle the master bathroom! Do you store a lot in your guest bathroom or is it more for guests? How do you store your extra toilet paper?

It's the little things

I'm really trying to take care of little projects as soon as I come across them in my quest to get organized. A couple of weeks ago I hung this clock up in our guest bathroom. It had been getting in the way in various non-wall locations since we moved in on Valentine's day 3 years ago. So, it was about time I got around to that! The reason I had left it of the wall for so long was that one of the leaves had fallen off and I wasn't sure where it was. I kept the clock because I knew I had put the missing leaf somewhere safe! Sure enough, while I was cleaning out my jewelry box I found it!


I immediately got out my glue gun before I could lose the leaf again! I also remembered that I had a mirror which had fallen out of it's compact. I've been meaning to glue it back together too. Since I had the glue gun out already I grabbed that to fix as well.


You might also notice the white pom pom in the above photo. I found two of them in with my jewelry and was finally going to sew them back on the scarf that they had fallen off of. Unfortunately, one of my kitties got to one of them and completely shredded it into little strings. I guess it's time to get rid of that scarf now. I haven't worn it in a while any way since it was missing these pom poms.

At least I now have a pretty repaired clock and mirror!


It definitely feels good to tackle small projects after putting them off for months or years! I can't believe it took me so long to fix this clock. Do you also save things because you can fix them but then take years to do it?