Link-Tastic ~ The Bathroom Edition

Posted by Laura on July 28, 2008 · 2 Comments

Jeri’s Organizing & Decluttering ~ Taming the Tub: 8 Bath Toy Organizers

Passionate Homemaking ~ Simplifying in the Bathroom

Video ~ Organizing Under the Bathroom Sink

The Lazy Organizer ~ Organize Your Bathroom Drawer

Home Made Simple ~ Organize a Busy Bathroom

Video ~ Organizing Hair and Makeup Products

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It’s not to late to enter Org Junkie’s Monthly Organizing Round-Up for this month. I’ll be putting up Mr. Linky tonight but you’ll have all week to link up to the before and after pictures of your bathroom. See further details here.

Filed under Bathroom, Link Love · Tagged with Bathroom

The container that started it all….

Posted by Laura on July 22, 2008 · 36 Comments

I just realized that I’ve never shared with you the one container that I hold entirely responsible for my bordering on neurotic itty bitty teeny tiny organizing addiction. It was a gift given to me by one of my bestest girlfriends when I was around 20 years old (in other words not that long ago…wink, wink). It’s a simple wooden container, nothing fancy except for of course the beautiful paint job she did on the front and back of it to make it that little bit extra special :)

What this lovely little container did for me was introduce to me the concept of divide and conquer. No kidding, it was an epiphany for me when I realized how easy it was to find what I needed. Check it out:

Now isn’t that an amazing gift! The divide and conquer technique can also be accomplished very inexpensively with boxes or baskets as well. Any dollar store will have small baskets to fit your drawers and help you set some boundaries and limits.

As I was taking the above picture I thought hmmm what else can I take a picture of in my bathrooms. So here are some storage tips that you might find useful when getting your own bathrooms whipped into shape.

For whatever reason it seems like too much trouble for my kids to put their toothbrushes away in a drawer. I solved that by purchasing (at the dollar store) a small ice bucket for my counter top. It’s just big enough for all the toothbrushes and toothpastes.

Buckets of soap

My ensuite is very tiny with just a pedestal sink and nowhere to put anything. I purchased this floating glass shelf from Canadian Tire to provide me with a little extra storage space.

My daughter’s hair accessories. These divided containers can also be purchased at the dollar store and work great!

I don’t have cupboard space for bath toys so these containers by the bath tub do the trick nicely.

Potty training Skittles, gotta have those :) Six days of many a mess and not leaving my house my son finally knows what he’s suppose to do, yay!

So my friends, have a wonderful day.

Now off you go to DIVIDE and CONQUER!

Filed under Bathroom, My Life · Tagged with Bathroom, containers

Monthly Organizing Round-Up – Organizing under the bathroom sink

Posted by Laura on July 9, 2008 · 25 Comments

Thanks to everyone who participated in the playroom round-up. I’m anxiously looking forward to a free moment to have a look at them all! To find out more about what the round-up is all about visit here.

This month we will be focusing on our bathroom or bathrooms depending on how energetic you feel :)

Bathrooms if we aren’t careful tend to get cluttered very easily. With the amount of stuff that we need to store in them it’s no wonder. We’ll spend some time this month on the various areas of the bathroom and some organizing solutions that will help you make sense of what you have and establish some limits and boundaries at the same time.

Don’t forget to follow the PROCESS though. I know it’s tempting to want to jump right to the containerizing part (trust me, I know!) but before you can do that you need to spend some time on the Remove, Sort and Purge steps. This will pay off big time for you later by saving you money on storage solutions you might not even necessarily need after you decide you don’t really need all 400 of those little hotel shampoos you’ve been collecting. You will decide that right? Right? Seriously who am I to talk I’ve got a few of them myself :)

Some of you will remember the post I did on the organizing my sister-in-law did under her bathroom sink. She did such a great job I just have to show you the pictures again.

Before:

After:

I absolutely love those pull out baskets she purchased. I went online and found them available at the Container Store.

The best thing to do when tackling under your bathroom sink is to try and take advantage of vertical space similar to my sister in law did above using either drawers or bins. I use stacking bins (purchased from the dollar store) in my bathroom.

As you know there are just so many different ways to organize a space. Here are a few additional under the bathroom sink ideas just to get you thinking (clicking on the picture will take you to where I found them).

Also you’ll notice my sister in law used a separate basket for her cleaning supplies. It is such a great time saver to keep a supply of cleaning products in each bathroom for quick and easy cleanups. I found these same baskets inexpensively at my dollar store.