Achieving a Tidy and Organized Bathroom Closet -

Have you ever been to one of those lovely spas or resorts where they have beautifully organized bathrooms? Doesn’t it make you feel relaxed? Do you wish you could replicate that zen feeling in your bathroom at home? Here is how.

Bathrooms are some of the smallest rooms in most of our homes. Yet, they can sometimes be the most disorganized and harder to keep in order. Usually, bathroom closets have doors which gives them the advantage to hide anything we need to behind them. What we may be forgetting is that, their doors are meant to hide personal products and not clutter. It’s in our advantage to have our closets as organized and tidy as possible. Here are some organizational tips and ideas I use in our home to keep our bathroom closets clean and organized.

Get it all out

Like everything else, when it comes to organization, the first step is to take everything out and sort through it. If you just take it out and then put it all back in without discarding, decluttering and going through your items, you will have to do it all over again in the very near future. Trust me, you don’t want that.

If this happens, then you will think that organization is not efficient and needs to be redone all the time. When in fact, organization does not need to be done after it’s been done correctly. In order for it to be done correctly, you need to sort through your items and only keep what you actually use and/or need and discard the rest.

Sorting process

Once you’ve gotten everything out, next step is to group similar items together. This will give you an idea of how many products you have. Once that is complete, go through the groupings one by one and look and see if:

the product or item is one that you still use?
could you live without it?
does it have an expiration date?
if so, is it still good?
do you have doubles of this product?
can they be combined?
can some unused items be donated?

This process should help you eliminate items and products that you are not using or that you didn’t even know you had. By reducing the amount of things you have, it will make the organizing process easier for you.

Finding the right spot

You will now need to assess where your items will go into their “homes”. When each item has a home, it’s much easier to find and put away your items.

To assess where they will go, look at the size of each item and the quantity you have to best decide where they would be best positioned. Acknowledge the shape, size and height of your item to help you find its home.

Marie Kondo has many great tips with regards to this type of organization. She recently shared on her Instagram account how it can be easier to start with your larger items when putting everything back in your closet. I completely agree with her.

You also want to consider the accessibility of these items. If they are ones that you access often, you may want to keep them at eye level. Items at eye level are easily kept in a basket or bin. They don’t necessarily need a cover since they are used frequently. This makes reaching in for them easy and convenient.

Picture of the inside of one of our closets with a hamper for towels at the bottom, 2 white bins labelled "medical" and "bath" on a shelf and towel on the shelf above that.

If some of your products are ones that you don’t reach for very often, keep them higher. If you need to, put them in bins or containers that have lids so you can easily stack them and see at a glance what you have up there.

Picture of the top shelf of one of our bathroom closets. Has a larger bin labelled "other" for not frequently used products and smaller bins with lids stacked on top of each other for other not so frequently used items labelled as "cotton", "nails", "blades" and "eyes".

Label naming

You don’t need to have everything labelled. My rule is: unless it’s a bathroom closet for guests and you want to be helpful to them, there is no need to label every inch of a bathroom closet. Or else, it will be overwhelming to have so many labels. I honestly don’t see the need to have each and every item labelled. Try to be general with your grouping names.

I used to do that and label each and every item, bin and container in our bathroom in our previous home. To my understanding, it was the way to do it until I looked at the final product and it felt cluttered with words and labels. I had understood that having labels everywhere was part of what organized meant, until… I read the book “The Home Edit” by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin. (Amazing book to give as a gift to someone who loves to organize by the way)

“I understood that I didn’t need to be very specific (with my labels)“

After reading their book, I had this huge “ahah” moment. I understood that if I wanted to label by bins and containers that I didn’t need to be very specific. I learned that the advantage of being more general with the labels on the bin or container is that it can contain a larger variety of products from the same “family”.

Example: Instead of having bins for hair brushes, another one for hair products and a third one for hair tools I can just have the one bin labelled “hair” and have them all in one place. Tadaaa! This type of grouping is much more practical and visually clean.

Picture of the inside of one of our closets with towels arranged by size on two shelves and the third shelf with 2 white bins labelled "bath" and "hair".

Label types

The types of labels can be very overwhelming so try to focus on the style you want and if it would work with the bins, containers and baskets your are using.

chalkboard stickers – Here are some labels very similar to mine. You can easily erase what you’ve written with a damp cloth, let it dry and rewrite your label.
The Home Edit labels – Since I’ve mentioned them already, might as well tempt you with their lovely labels. I have not ordered any yet but I thought I would share since they are gorgeous!
label maker – This is the latest version of the label maker I have. It’s frequently on special for around $20 at Staples and it works well.

I’ve personally used chalk board stickers in a couple of areas in our home and I like them because I can rewrite a label if I want to change its content without really having to create a whole new label.

Same with baskets and containers. Keep in mind the style and feel you want to achieve and accumulate the bins, baskets or containers for that style. Need some inspiration, check out Pinterest. It’s packed full of closet organizational look ideas.

Towels

How should you fold your towels? Honestly, you can fold or roll them however you prefer as long as you are consistent. By being consistent, they will be visually appealing and that will play a great part in the feel it will give to your bathroom.

Are you the type of person that has many towels and never seem to get to the very last one? Maybe you are not… regardless if you are or not, I have a tip for you.

Quick tip: When you have folded your freshly cleaned towels, try to put them under the ones left in your bathroom closet. That way, you won’t have the problem of having towels that never get used and become crisp from not being washed. A towel rotation will also help you better assess if all the towels you have are necessary or if some are not comfortable and could be discarded or even if you could live with less of them overall.

Picture of the inside of one of our bathroom closets with towels folded and grouped by size on the shelves.

If you do choose to roll your towels, you may want to consider containing them with dividers, bins or baskets in your closet. That way, it will keep them from rolling away. Having towels rolled, instead of folded, certainly gives you more of a spa feel (if that’s what you are looking for).

Decor

Try to be intentional with your decor when picking pieces as well as with their placement within your bathroom. Using too many items will make any organized bathroom feel cluttered, so keep that in mind. You don’t need to fully organize and decorate your bathroom in one day.

Take your time with each step (but not too much time or you may start procrastinating and it will never get fully completed). If you need to, start with your favorite piece and find the best spot for it. Then move on to the second piece and so on and so forth. At some point you will know and feel it when it’s enough.

Picture of the decor in our main bathroom above the toilet. Wooden shelf with metal sides with two picture frames with scrapbook paper and a small plant.

In one of our bathrooms, I simply chose to add a shelf and fill it with frames I already had on hand and add a piece of scrap-booking paper in them to add details. I did a similar project in our little one’s playroom which you can have a look at here. Decorating a small space does not have to be complicated. When done intentionally, it can make a huge difference to the feel of a room.

I’m the first one to say that organizing a bathroom can be overwhelming. However, once completed, it can bring so much order to your morning and evening routine on top of saving you time overall. Keep that goal in mind when the process seems hard and tedious.

I truly hope this post will encourage you to organize your bathroom. If it does, share this post and let me know what product (or products) you found in your bathroom closet and that you didn’t even know you had.