Organizing your bathroom is a great place to start, because its non-emotional. Parting with old cosmetics and shampoos is easy to do and will give you immediate gratification – and prepare you to tackle the rest of your house. Being the most high-traffic area in the house, not to mention its function as a tiny container for an extremely high volume of stuff, it’s surprising that the bathroom is so overlooked as a necessary organizing project. With multiple members of the family coming and going, it can be hard to keep a system going. That’s why it’s important to set up the organizing solutions that work easily for everyone.
Sort: First, pull out EVERYTHING. Even your shampoo and conditioner in the shower. Then, sort your bathroom items into piles. We recommend the following: showering / bathing, grooming, medicine and cleaning. If it helps, use temporary cardboard boxes or plastic bins to hold your sorted piles so they don’t take over the hallway.
Purge: Get rid of any shampoos, soaps or cosmetics that you don’t use. Goodwill will not accept half-used containers, but you can take them to any homeless shelter and they will be glad to have them. Throw away expired medications and sunscreen. Set duplicate items aside to go into an overstock container, or put them in your suitcase to use for travel.
Shine: While everything is still out of the bathroom, take the time to give it a good cleaning. Also, prepare desired items to be put back by giving them a quick dusting if needed.
Standardize: Now that you know which items you want to keep and have them grouped into activities, containerize and put them back. Be thoughtful about what you put in the “prime real estate” area. Save middle and easy-to-reach shelving for constantly accessed items such as towels and toiletries. Consider putting medicine in an upper shelf or a separate cabinet. Lazy Susans can be very useful for storing medicine, toiletries and cosmetics. Label containers so that the rest of your family can easily find (and put back!) whatever they are looking for.
Sustain: Assign a champion in the family to go through the bathroom once a week and make sure everything is in the right place. This person should patrol for any loitering empty bottles or toilet paper rolls, and note which items need to be stocked up.
Thanks for inviting our home organizing services us into your bathroom!
Thanks Mary! We’re so glad we were able to help you out.