The following is a guest post from regular contributor, Rachel at Useful Beautiful Home.
*Sadly the pictures for this post are no longer available. Sorry about that.
My topic today focuses on the bathroom, specifically those small half baths with little or no storage space. Now, I’m not a big fan of potty talk, but there are certain details to consider if you’re hosting a holiday gathering this year.
Organizing Powder Room Essentials for Holiday Guests
We have a small powder room with a pedestal sink. While I love the way this fixture makes the space appear bigger, I don’t care for the lack of storage when it comes to bathroom related products (and I’m not talking about cleaning agents).
Normally, this isn’t a problem since we have plenty of cabinets in our other restrooms. However, the downstairs powder room is where most guests go to powder their noses, and therefore must conceal a few lady products during the party season.
The other day I ran a quick errand in search of gift card holders. While at my local dollar store, I came across these cylinder shaped containers.
They’re a perfect shape to stash a decent amount of feminine supplies.
And, the store also had coordinating gift boxes.
Which are perfect for hiding additional feminine products.
Now, back to my small space problem. I decided to display my storage containers in plain sight because they look so festive (and I really have no other option). I placed two “decorations” stuffed with supplies on top of the tank. No embellishments needed and when grouped together, it looks like I intentionally decorated our washroom for the holidays.
If you really want to take things a step further, you could decorate the whole porcelain fixture to look like Santa’s sleigh (haha). I opted for the less-is-more approach. 🙂
Here’s another version I did in our master bathroom. Different color scheme, same hidden storage solution.
When entertaining, I want our guests to feel welcome and have everything they need. Disguising feminine supplies as Christmas decorations accomplishes this in the powder room. Most people assume I enjoy decorating even the smallest room in the house. They have no clue the double life of my holiday containers.
If you have plenty of cabinet space for supplying feminine essentials, you can still make functional use of your toilet tank! My Aunt has another creative use for this ready-made shelf in the bathroom. At Thanksgiving, she displayed a decorative box filled with basic first aid supplies. She explained that it’s a simple way to make band-aids & related products easily accessible for guests. No one needs to hunt down the host/hostess to patch a cut or fix a hang nail. What a thoughtful use of an otherwise unused space!
Wishing you a productive last weekend before Christmas!
In the professional world, I’m a nurse by trade. But, around our house, I’m known as Mommy to our young daughter. My two worlds collided and began shaping into a blog. Useful Beautiful Home represents the hours I’ve dedicated to managing my household as efficiently as possible. I offer you motivation to keep your home healthy, organized, and welcoming. My goal is to share what I’ve implemented in my home to inspire you with fresh ideas and to encourage you to keep up the good work in yours!
K says
I think this looks really nice and is a great idea but maybe this is a dumb question, how do guests know to look inside?! I would never be in someones guest bathroom and assume I could take apart their decor to find what I needed!
KToo says
Exactly what I was thinking!!
Rachel says
Not a dumb question at all! Thanks for asking! It’s been my experience that most ladies ask me privately when they need to “borrow” feminine products, at which point I direct them to open the containers and take whatever they need.
Cherie says
What a fab idea! Right now I have those items in a plastic shoe box under the sink. I have been trying to think of a way to make it look better when guests ask. So thanks for the wonderful idea! And it can be changed seasonly – love it!
christinajosephone says
wow , awesome ideas thanks for sharing its , its really helpful to all.