Bathroom Drawer- Quick Spruce Up
Ah, toiletry organization. Bathroom cabinets and drawers can be tricky. They need to hold everything we use every day and they also may need to hold everything we use every so often, think we are going to use, plan to use but never use...well, maybe things in that last category should go somewhere else… but back to the toiletries. My bathroom drawer had been organized, ignored, organized again, and now needed a little spruce up in order to be really useful again.
The main issues were:
The containers I had did not fit the space well and weren't the right material, in some cases (metal bins in a wet space is not a good long term choice).
The toiletries I had did not fit in the space with my containers.
Toiletries were not able to all be stored with like items, so they were spilling over into other areas.
I started by emptying the drawer and wiping everything down. This gave me a clean slate and left me see what I was working with. I also emptied items from their containers and organized them by purpose/type. And then I realized that my rug needed a vacuum...but I digress.
Why yes, that is a kid’s dental pamphlet torn into two pieces, but if it gets my kid to stay still while we brush teeth- it gets to stay!
Looking at everything sorted by type, I then went through each grouping and :
Removed anything that I used less than once a week- I moved these items to the linen closet for storage.
Removed items that were empty, not being used, broken, etc. and recycled and trashed as necessary.
Removed anything used often, but not used in that room- moved to the linen closet or wherever else it may be used.
After this review and purge session, I had a good idea of what I needed to store in the bathroom drawer. I then got to work on the containers. Some of the containers I was using were metal, which was not a good idea for an area that gets splashed from time to time. I pulled these out for use elsewhere and swapped in a few plastic containers I had on hand. Then I tried a few different ways of putting in the plastic organizers into the drawer, but I ran into a snag- the built in dividers. (Original picture below to show the dividers).
As you can see, the dividers divided the space into three sections and those did not fit the space that my categories of items needed, nor did they fit my plastic organizers well. Then...a light bulb moment! I started to inspect the dividers and the drawer and realized that with a couple of quick turns with the screwdriver, I could remove the divider. So that’s exactly what I did.
Opening up the space really allowed me to organize all of my like items together without compromising due to an ill-placed divider. I gave my husband’s shaving gear the larger container it needed, I was able to bring back a few often used items into the drawer, and I still had space for a few new items that I wanted to remind myself to try, seen above in the round little pots.
The container I used for our family’s toothbrushes would stay, but it had a problem. It would get yucky pretty fast and there seemed to be no way from keeping toothbrushes from flopping around, being face down, being on top of one another. Not only did it not look great, but it was a pain to keep cleaning it constantly. There are certainly other ways to store toothbrushes and other specific toothbrush trays, but the drawer really worked for us and I already had a tray that I wasn’t interested in paying to upgrade. This is where a random elastic band comes in! I put the band around the tray and voila!- a place to rest the toothbrush head that not only kept them apart, but let the head drip dry or drain as well. So far, so good!
And here is the finished product- organized, clean, and ready for everyday use. Similar items for similar purposes are together, containers are the right size for the items they are meant to hold, and the toothbrushes are no longer stacked on top of one another.
