Friday 27 March 2015

How To Squeeze Extra Storage From A Teeny Tiny Bathroom..

Hi honeys

Today I thought I'd share another of our little home organizing projects. This time we're in the bathroom. We only have one bathroom in our home and it's small. I mean teeny tiny small. We had previously installed additional storage, using a tall cupboard with matching stand alone cupboard and under sink vanity. In spite of that though, our window ledge still ended up cluttered with things used regularly, such as my face wipes, face wash, etc. To be honest, I got fed up with it! We needed to find a way to keep the products I use daily on hand, but off our window ledge. This is what we did.....

How To Add Extra Storage To Teeny Tiny Bathrooms

We'd all like to win the battle against clutter, right? In our bathroom I've found that the worst offenders are things used every day, several times a day even, such as toothbrushes, mouthwash, moisturiser, face wash (love it love it love it! I'm obsessed :) My ever present baby wipes which are fabulous to remove make up, on the rare occasions I wear it, such as to work, the list goes on....

All of these things tend not to live in your bathroom cabinets. Why? Because they're being used so often it seems silly and, to be honest, a waste of valuable time, to be in & out of cabinets all day.  So, what happens honeys? These much used items end up making a home on any available surface.  Cabinet surfaces, on top of the cistern, and yes, on the long suffering window ledge.

It might be far tidier to make a home in our cabinets for everything, but I can guarantee you that if you have to rummage under your sink for your make up wipes or face wash after a long day you'll just use soap & water and to hell with pores! 

Far better then to make a pretty home for items you use most that is near to hand. Basically a "grab, use and go" set up. These are the systems that we keep up with because they become habit!  

If you've read any of my organizing posts you'll know honeys that I adore the RIBBA picture ledges from Ikea. We used one in what is now the craft room, where it's been used as the foundation of a little book nook :) 

We also have one above the bed in our master bedroom to hold our books, tablets and other bits and bobs, this helps keep our bedside tables tidy.  That one is working really well. 

 Back to our poor cluttered bathroom window ledge :) Well, as you know we've been working on the closets in our craft room & bedroom this past week or two and being in and out of those rooms, I suppose the idea of the RIBBA ledges connected with our cluttered bathroom and went ping!

The problem with this is that we don't live near enough to Ikea to just swan over whenever the mood takes us, perhaps just as well really, because I'd never be out of the place :)  So, I went along to our Ikea online shopping list, which we keep updating between visits, and added (another) ribba ledge to our list for next visit.

Then something wonderful happened! I was surfing through the Argos website and discovered a very similar product, supplied in a set of two, much smaller than the large ledge we've previously bought but perfect for the space we needed them for :) We (or rather Hubby... thank you sweetheart x) fitted one to the wall under the medicine cabinet right by the sink.....     

These mini picture/display ledges make perfect storage for toiletries.

I was so happy with this new storage space I immediately filed it with my face washes, baby wipes and mouthwash... take that bending to get into low cabinets on achey "spoonie" days :) 

Then Hubby went and did something amazing for me. He fitted a spare BYGEL rail underneath the ledge.  Spare you say? who keeps spares?  We've found so many uses for these, and the matching little containers, around our home, and they're so cheap that we bought a couple extra last visit :)      

An Ikea Bygel rail was added underneath to add extra storage

Onto this rail, as you can see above, we added three BYGEL containers. The first of these is home to our toothbrushes (in their plastic containers) and toothpaste.  The second container has (another) face wash (I did say I was obsessed :) and moisturiser. 

The last container has a pack of bathroom cleaning wipes, used to clean our bathroom porcelain to a shine :)  Again, it's just easier to have these to hand rather than in my cleaning cupboard or in the cabinet under the sink.

Do you remember I said there were two of these wonderful shelves supplied honeys?  Hubby fitted the other one under the large mirror on our main bathroom wall.   

An additional picture ledge/display shelf was added under the large mirror

This mirror is the one I tend to use when getting ready for work and this little ledge will be great to pop make up, hair brushes etc onto while I'm using them. So not just for storage then but also as a form of work surface for busy wee Rosie's getting ready to dash to work :)

Only a tiny change but they've already been so useful and best thing of all is that we have a lovely tidy bathroom window ledge :) What do you think honeys? How do you organize a teeny tiny bathroom?  Do you have any hints & tips to squeeze some extra storage from your bathroom?

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend dear ones, have fun and stay warm, we're not completely done with the chilly winds yet I'm afraid. Till next time honeys, huggles xx

Edit: The above mini ledges are still available at Argos but Ikea have done the unthinkable and seem to have discontinued the Bygel series! However they've introduced a similar system called Sunnersta which has a rail, hooks and tubs (which are now square rather than the rounder Bygel ones) The Sunnersta pieces are white rather than metallic in colour so I'm looking forward to seeing them, since a white rail might look better in the bathroom. Huggles xx

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