Sometimes life has a way of sneaking up on us and, before we know it, our clutter becomes overwhelming. This disorganization and clutter in this particular bathroom was a product of many factors:

#1 The client had lived in this house for a few decades.

The longer you live in one place, the more stuff you collect because you don’t have a super urgent reason to downsize. This particular home had a huge master bath with only one occupant so there was plenty of room to store the extra clutter!

#2 Health challenges made it difficult to clean and keep up with the clutter

As our health deteriorates, we sometimes lose the desire or have the capacity to create order in our life. Health challenges will almost always take priority. The tragic part of this situation is that when you are sick, this is probably the most important time to have space and a clear/clean environment. Space always makes us feel better!

#3.Being surrounded by a lot of stuff helps us to feel less lonely when we live alone.

Some people equate more stuff with greater happiness. They will try to fill the void in their life by accumulating more things.

Unfortunately, this  project was completed after the client moved into an assisted living community.

The good news is that we were able to donate all of the usable toiletries to a local women’s shelter and they were ecstatic!

Are your bathroom drawers a jumble of disorganized chaos?

Never fear. With a little love and proper organization within, your drawers can help you get ready in the morning instead of hampering your progress to get out the door and off to work on time!

Situation

As you might notice, there were many items in this drawer that were not part of a man’s daily ‘off to work’ routine.

Solution

We moved everything out that did not help in the morning and brought in everything that was part of the early routine. With everything he needs organized into one drawer, my client is now less frustrated, off and out to work on time.

All of the wife’s items are now in her own drawer and she is also organized!

Situation:
A bathroom cabinet that didn’t have any zones or holding areas for individual items. It was a cathcall for whatever landed within.

Challenge:
Separating the contents and determining what should be stored in this spacious cabinet area.

Solution:
We purged and brought in other itmes that were spread throughout the other cabinets. Plastic Sterilite bins were installed to hold specific types of items including travel, feet/spa, brushes and more.

Side Note: Creating a separate travel bin for your small toiletries collected on previous trips will keep these items easily available when packing for your next trip. By keeping the bin no larger than a small shoebox, you will also know when your collection needs to be downsized.

Tip: Most charities that assist the homeless need these items at all times, so give your excess to those who really need it.

Kathi,

I have a challenge for you:
I have built-in shelving in my bathroom.  It is behind the door and goes from the floor to the ceiling.  Only thing is, they are very, very deep.  The dimensions are 15″ wide x 23″ tall x 35″ deep.  There are 4 shelves.

We would like to organize this space with all of our bathroom stuff (towels, hair stuff, lotions, shaving, bath toys, etc.).  How in the world do we do this?

I had considered just buying some pretty wicker baskets to make it pretty, but still, our stuff would just be thrown into each basket without any order.
HELP!

Dear Help,

You are so lucky to have floor to ceiling built in cabinets in your bathroom. The only real challenge as I see it is that the cabinets are deep and probably act as a black hole with minimal effort.

Here is what you do to keep items form disappearing into the deep recesses:

Separate and organize all items by type of use. Your categories might include toiletries, bathing, makeup, towels, medicine etc.

Segregate each collection into containers.

Towels might be able to fit into large plastic bins that will act as drawers that you can pull in and out of the shelf as needed.

Bottles can swirl joyously on a very large (perhaps 24”) lazy susan

Bath toys can be hung in a hammock within the shower area or relegated again to another plastic bin of appropriate size.

Smaller items can be separated and stored in plastic Sterilite drawers

The items that are rarely used wil be tucked into the back of each shelf in separate bins so you can pull them out as needed after you pull out the items in front.

Consider your frequency of use for each ‘type’ of item

This will determine which items are stored at eye level and which are stored below or in the back of the shelf behind other more important categories.

I am assuming that you have already purged and donated the excess items that you no longer need or use. By the way, for all readers, women’s shelters and shelters of all kinds absolutely LOVE the small travel and sample bottles of shampoos and soaps that we bring back from our hotel stays. Please donate these to your local shelters; they are a valuable commodity to these organizations!

Solution: Keep a separate bucket of cleaning products in each major cleaning area, i.e. a complete set for kitchen & a separate set for the bathroom. Each bucket should contain sponges, gloves, cleaner sprays & separate specialty items such as toilet bowl cleaner, shower door spray or oven cleaner, When you are ready to tackle the job, simply pull out your bucket & you are ready to go! Once the job is completed, simply put it back in the cabinet under the sink