Bathroom Drawer Organization: a house log

Dude, meet our disaster drawer. I know you folks already got a preview of him yesterday, but you know how a horror movie has that dun-dun-duuuuun sound effect? This drawer needs one too. It is that bad. Like “what wild animal got in there and rooted around?” bad. So in the name of organization week (and general sanity) it was about time we got on it.

 

The issue is that we do not have a medicine cabinet, thanks to the window in front of the sink, as demonstrated by this pic from our House Tour page. The drawer in front of the sink is in fact a false drawer, so we cannot use that one for additional storage. Sure, we have the cabinet under the sink, but that is where we put bigger stuff like the hairdryer and our travel toiletry bag, so it is mainly all on this small skinny drawer to store every last little thing – like floss, toothpaste, contact stuff, medicine, deodorant, hair stuff, nail stuff, and all the other things that typically get shoved into a few drawers and perhaps even a medicine cabinet or linen closet.

But I knew straightening up this drawer was possible. John and I are fairly minimalistic when it comes to stuff like this (for example, I have a small travel makeup bag with all of the makeup that I own in it – which is less than eight items – and I keep that in the car or my purse, so that does not need space in the drawer). We also do not wear perfume or cologne, so there is no need to store that or any bath salts or scrubs (we are shower people). In short: we do not have that much stuff when you consider that this is a pile of all the medicine, tooth stuff, nail stuff, hair stuff, and general hygiene stuff in our whole house except for one pot of diaper cream in Clara’s room and a bottle of body wash, shampoo, and conditioner in the shower.

So we simply had to figure out a way to wrangle it so it was functional (ie: so we could in fact find what we were looking for). The first order of business was removing everything so we could see the bottom of the drawer again and take inventory of all the things we had. I went through everything and got rid of things like expired medication or empty bottles that somehow got shoved back into the mess.

 

Then I grabbed two divided boxes at TJ Maxx to the tune of $9. I think they are meant for office supplies or jewelry, but they were the right height for the sink drawer and I knew the key to adding some order would be to segment things off and create zones to keep things from slipping all over the place every time the drawer slid open. Here is what I came up with after I stuck those two containers in the drawer along with the wooden toothbrush/toothpaste box we had from a while back and filled them all up.

 

It was a tight fit, but everything that I took out (except for the expired medicine and empty containers) fit back in. And this time it makes sense! If you look closely, I tried to group things. For example, all my nail polish is together at the back right of the drawer, all of our razors are together at the front right of the drawer, all of our contacts are stored on the left side of the drawer, and all of our mouth related stuff is still in the toothpaste box (mouthwash, toothpaste, and toothbrushes and one pack of floss, while the extra floss is back near my nail polish). In the back left of the drawer is all of our medicine along with a box of my, uh, feminine products.

Some of those cubbies, like the three in the middle of this picture are simply items that are grouped by owner. For example, the one on the left is my stuff (an extra concealer and mascara that came packaged as a set of two so I only put one in my travel makeup pouch, my hair-cutting scissors, a nail file, etc) while the middle cubby is where John’s hair stuff and razor and contact case live. That cubby is sort of his morning routine (although he does not shave every morning – perhaps simply every three). The cubby to the right of that is also John’s shaving stuff (shaving cream and aftershave) – so putting them next to each other and keeping my stuff out of his cubbies will hopefully make it easier to keep up with this system (he will not be messing with my areas and my stuff will not be in the way of his).

Medication safety update: All the medication is in childproof containers and those razor blades snap into a protective case that Clara could not unsnap on her own (at 23 months old, Clara cannot open non-childproof bottles or even tupperware containers) and we keep the door to our bedroom closed so she is never in there unattended (since Burger’s food is in that room and she likes to mess with it, haha). So there is a no-Clara-in-the-bedroom rule unless we are in there with her.

Here is the other side of the drawer again, simply because I thought for a shot of random bathroom stuff, this was kinda fairly. Haha.

 

So yay! We at last got on that. I simply hope it stays this way. It has lasted through one evening and one morning routine, so I have a fair amount of hope. I gave John a stern look and said “please respect the cubbies” and so far he has been excellent about it. But I will have to take a random photo in six months to see how this whole shebang truly fares. You know I will keep it real and report back, whether it is still looking good or somehow has exploded into chaos again.

The sad thing about getting on this project is that in doing it I noticed another task that I need to add to the list: painting these cabinets and drawers- both inside and out. See that dinged up looking lip? Now that things are pleasant and organized inside of the drawer I notice it even more. Why is it that one upgrade frequently simply shines a big ol’ spotlight on other things that still need to be attended to? Oh well. Someday I will get on that.

Simply for lively, I snapped a picture of the cabinets under the sink. I told you we were minimalists about this sort of stuff. Simply an old box from John’s grandpa full of a few John things, our travel toiletry bag (the black thing in the middle) and a basket with a hairdryer, a brush, and a curling iron among some other random items in the back. But see those blue arrows? Those are other dings and smudges I noticed while cleaning up. Someday I will conquer them. Although likely not anytime soon if I am being honest. Haha.

 

Until then I will simply appreciate being able to check if we need more floss or razors at a glance while grabbing the deodorant without having to wrestle any other toiletries out of the way. It is the little things.

We will be back tomorrow with a large rundown of all the grooming & cleaning products that we use in an attempt to keep it plain (many of them multitask, so we do not have to store ten million distinct bottles under the sink). What have you folks been organizing lately? Have you found things like dividers or cubbies to be helpful in instances where you have only one shallow area that needs to store a bunch of distinct things? Who is tackling their bathroom stuff tonight? And is it weird that I brushed and flossed after this project? Staring at all that stuff somehow compelled me to end things like that – simply to test out my storage system I guess. Haha.