Okay, let’s get back to the idea of trying to get organized. We have a full bathroom upstairs and and a half bath downstairs. For those from other places, this means that our bathroom upstairs has a commode, sink, and bathtub/shower, while our downstairs bathroom has only a commode and sink. They are small. The downstairs bathroom is just less than 4 feet by 4 feet. The upstairs one is about 6 feet by 5 feet - the 5 feet being the cross measurement of the bathtub. I am not sure that in some of the new houses being built the “toilet room” in the bathrooms are not larger than our bathrooms themselves.
When we moved in the downstairs bathroom had a decent sink and fairly new small vanity. At some point the floor had been retiled as it ceramic tile and based on what I know of tile at different points in my life, I would say it had put in within 10 years of when we bought. The walls in both bathrooms have plastic tile - something I have never otherwise seen and I presume is older. The vanity had a drawer below the door section.
The upstairs sink and vanity were not that nice - and much older looking. At some point we decided to replace them. We then found out that our bathroom sinks are below the smallest standard size. Back then we had a choice of two, now I am not sure that this size is still made. We looked and looked and managed to find a duplicate of the downstairs vanity - with a drawer at the bottom. No other vanities in this size had any drawer and there were maybe 3 of them to choose from. Understand I don’t mean that we went to a store and the store had 3 of them. We went to ALL the stores and found 3 total. We replaced the upstairs sink and vanity, putting in the new setup ourselves. When we moved in there was no electric outlet in either bathroom - yes, I just said that there was no outlet in either bathroom when we moved in. We are not sure how the families before us dried their hair and the men must have shaved with blades, not an electric shaver. We are not sure this would be allowed under the current electric code where we live.
When I read organizing books there is an assumption that there are lots of drawers, a large cabinet and a counter top. We have no counter in either bathroom. We also cannot put an “over john” in the upstairs bathroom. (This is a set of shelves intended to stand around the commode and put shelves over it.) Why? Well, the window is over the commode and it would be blocked by the over john unit. What we did end up doing is making a 2 shelved wheeled cart that just squeezes in opposite the sink and next to the bathtub. It can be wheeled out when one is taking a shower or cleaning the bathroom and then wheeled back in. The bottom is used for storage and the top for counter space. Spare towels and related are kept in a small closet in the hall outside of the bathroom. We also put up a wooden ladder shaped hanging, that we made, on the wall adjacent to the commode - this is for magazines, but they get a bit icky where it is located, so very little is placed there.
The drawer in upstairs bathroom is husband’s. He has to put his razor and related items somewhere and the drawer is where they are. Since he gets dizzy when he bends over, it is not the best place, but it is what we have. In the cabinet I have a plastic shoe box without a lid. This holds our first aid stuff for upstairs. It can be pulled out to be taken to where it is needed. We have spare toilet paper and mouthwash in the cabinet, as well as a spray bottle of shower cleaner. That fills it. In the “medicine cabinet” over the sink, husband has his teeth related items on the top shelf in what is sold as drawer divider box. He can take the entire divider box out, put it on the cart to use it, and then put it back. Small bathroom related items - including over the counter pain killers - are on the other two shelves. We do not keep any prescription medication upstairs. Why? I have to count it out once a week into boxes (so if one of us says “hey, did I take my pills?” we can easily check if it was taken) and I do this in the kitchen, so the prescription medications are kept in the kitchen. I keep my teeth related items in the hall closet - it just leads to much less arguing.
We do have this closet just outside our bathroom and bedroom. It had shelves so it is used as a linen closet for the bedrooms and the upstairs bathroom. We put a wire shelving unit on the inside of the door and I try to keep the items there in sections by what they are for to be able to find them - such as all of the “Band aid” type items are on the same door shelf. Cleaning items for the bathroom are on the bottom door shelf. A roll of paper towels is also kept in this closet for upstairs use.
The hand towels in use hang on a towel bar on the door - we went to change this when we moved in, but it is set into a cut into the tile around the tub/shower and could not be changed. The started shower towels hang on the door of the shower. I also have 2 “utility” towels in the bathroom. These are towels to wipe up spills and messes.
I keep the box of tissues on the top of the commode. Also there and on the window sill are pump hand soap and pump hand sanitizer . For fun and decoration there are some small “rubber” duckies in a line across the window sill. There is a holder for small paper cups on the wall between the sink area and the tub.
When it is time to clean the bathroom, I wheel the cart out of it. I do have to lie across the (closed) commode seat to be able to reach behind it to clean it and the floor. To clean the tiny space between the sink/cabinet and the tub, I have to kneel in the tub to be able to reach the floor there to clean it.
The day after we moved in we had an electrician in to put in an electric outlet. The choices were limited. It could be on the wall that is behind one, when one is standing at the sink - not convenient. or we could move the lighting fixture and put the outlet where the light had been. The light was moved to the eave angle of the ceiling and an outlet put in. I can sort of reach the outlet, but not really.
The upstairs does have ceramic tile on the wall and on the tub surround so they must have been replaced as they are not plastic, although they look older than the ones in the downstairs bathroom.
Ah yes - I wanted to mention that we always seem to manage to drip some water off the back corner of the sink onto the floor (on the commode side) and I have started folding a paper towel in quarters and putting it this corner of the floor to absorb any water that drips.
The downstairs sink has a bit more flat surface around it and I have the pump soap and pump hand sanitizer on the back corners of the sink. I cut a paper towel in half and then cut it to match the curve of the sink and keep the pieces under the two pumps to keep the sink top clean - I change them when I clean the bathroom.
I also have to lie down on the commode to clean behind it. There is a perhaps 1 inch to 1.5 inch space between the vanity and the side wall - it is next to impossible to clean. A damp paper towel folded and shoved in and moved with a yard stick is about the best that can be done. The cleaners are kept in the vanity. The drawer here holds some magazines (BBC History magazine to be specific.) The hand towels and some utility towels (no other towels needed for here) are also kept in the vanity. I hang a set of hand towels on a towel bar. The owner before us also had 2 large rings for towels and I hang a utility towel in one of them for wiping up. There is a cup holder attached to the wall with a metal cup in it. We use this bathroom when cleaning up from doing crafts and the cup holds paint brushes that need to dry.
For an electric outlet in this bathroom we installed (ourselves) a combination piece which has one outlet and the light switch in what would be the second outlet area. It has not been working right lately (only when I am using it of course) and we have bought a new matching unit to replace the old one.
The medicine cabinet has more of the same over the counter medicines. (We keep older bottles of them when we buy new and split the new between the upstairs and downstairs bottles, putting the new expiration dates on the older bottles as we never use them up before they go bad and do not want to buy 2 bottles.) We get our prescription medications in 90 day supplies and I keep the bottles in this cabinet. Since it is not a shower bathroom, it does not get steamy so we can do this. I count the pills into smaller bottles (again ones from earlier prescriptions that match what is in them) of a month’s worth when I use up the month’s worth in them. These smaller bottles are kept in the kitchen cabinet. There is first aid stuff in this cabinet also - not as much as upstairs, just so we don’t have to always run upstairs for stuff.
Again the tissue box is kept on the back of the commode. A basket with “for show”guest soaps is also on the back of the commode. Over the commode (which is a wall here, not a window) we have a shelving piece with odd shape small shelves for husband’s small glass animals collection.
This room seems to have originally had a window. Above the plastic tile is wood paneling and there is a ceiling exhaust fan that does not seem to be original. There was a room added to the back of the house that sits behind this room and we assume that there was a window and was covered by the paneling when it was blocked off by the addition of the back room and the exhaust fan was installed at that time.
So that is our bathrooms. Each of them is probably smaller than a closet in the world of organizing books. Do you have a bathroom like our ours or do you have a nice big one.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
If you have small room you have to figure out how to make them work for you. When we started we were not sure what to do. Over the years we have managed to make them work for us. They are far from perfect or convenient, but they work. (And, as small as they are, they are bigger and more convenient than our RV bathroom - if you can call it that.)
I would love to hear from you about your bathroom and what you do to organize it.
Both bathrooms are at the back of the house.
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