Keep Your Bathroom Organized & Clean The Easy Way

First, close your eyes and visualize your personal bathroom for a few seconds. Think about how the cabinets, sinks, and other utility areas are positioned, and reflect on how you feel when you’re preparing for your day. Are your sanitary and hygiene needs nearby? Do you feel comfortable soaking in your bathtub or resting in the shower after a long day?

If all of this sounds frightening or scary, this is where we come in to remind you that once upon a time, it wasn’t like this. And getting it back will be easier than you think.

Organize Right & Reclaim Your Bathroom’s Beauty

The size of your master or personal bathroom will vary, but the strategies shouldn’t differ much. It’s often a challenge to pick the right starting point, and as you begin, you might find that different “sore spots” may come along as you begin uncovering areas you’ve long since forgotten about.

Before we dig in, let’s first establish how we’re going to segment everything. It can often be challenging to identify where the bigger problem areas lie, so we’re going to take the approach that everything not bolted down between the four walls of your bathroom are auditioning for a return to your cabinets and storage spaces. This means shampoo bottles, bobby pins, expired medications, and beauty products of questionable status will be treated individually, but swiftly.

Let’s start with Organizational Approach and Materials Needed:

Organizational Approach

To be able to equally reduce your excessive amount of stuff and keep products that you’ll need eventually, you’ll first need to develop a mindset perfect for making the decisions easy. For each item you come across, identify which category that it’ll fall under, based on the question “Do I need this?”:

  • Yes, meaning that you absolutely need this and there are no doubts.
  • Maybe, which should consist of items that you’re unsure of and would like to come back to review.
  • No, in which items to be discarded should be sent directly to either trash, recycling, or in a box for donation (or Garage Sale, if you’re ambitious).

    • For most of your belongings, the answer should be clear. When doubts arise on whether or not to keep something, ask yourself whether or not you expect to use this in the upcoming days, weeks, or even months. Often, you’ll find that your gut instinct is a good indicator on whether or not to keep something, or just rid yourself of it.

    Materials Needed

    Once you understand how to judge whether or not you’ll need that fifth bottle of hotel shampoo collecting dust in your side drawer, assemble boxes, containers, and any type of temporary-to-permanent storage needs that will help you get where you need to be.

  • Wastebasket
  • Recycling box
  • Donation box
  • Container for old medications
  • A few baskets or boxes for organizing the items you’ll be keeping
  • Cleaning wipes
  • Drawer organizers (highly recommended)

    • Tip: Take copious amounts of pictures of both before and after so you can admire how far you’re about to go in restoring your bathroom’s glory. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little bit of pride, especially if you’re the one doing the heavy lifting.

    Take Charge Of Your Bathroom’s Sore Spots

    The size of your master or personal bathroom will vary, but the strategies shouldn’t differ much. It’s often a challenge to pick the right starting point, and as you begin, you might find that different “sore spots” may come along as you begin uncovering areas you’ve long since forgotten about. By taking a broad approach to segmenting the work, you get a chance to start over and transform your private spaces into the way you envision them functioning and appearing.

    Step 1: Assess The Area

    First, remove everything from your drawers, cabinets, shelves, and anything not bolted down. Place clean items such as towels, toiletries, soaps, and shampoos in a container away from the bathroom, as these will likely be returning. If you have bathroom rugs or toilet seat covers, throw these in the washer right away. Chances are, there are a lot of items you may have forgotten about, and for these, take the three-box advice from earlier and immediately ask yourself whether or not you envision ever needing this again. Be honest and let your gut instinct work for you. Old loofah bars, expired sunscreen, medications from years ago — these are all items that should be discarded. While the goal is to clean, the end goal should also be to minimize and free up utility space.

    Step 2: Clean Your Empty Bathroom

    Cleaning an empty bathroom is easy in that you’re not having to dodge loose items, and you can spray cleaning agents and floor cleaners liberally and with no apprehension. Take a broom to your floors first but don’t mop just yet — that’ll come later — and once you’re finished, begin spraying down your basins & horizontals with the right cleaning materials:

  • Showers, bathtubs, toilets — Use a scrub pad and either AJAX or if you have plastic surfaces, a good spray solution. Let these sit and work their way into your grime and build-up. Be sure to provide proper ventilation at all times. Once the agents have soaked for about 15 minutes, then clean using a bit of effort and hot, hot water. Be sure to access those hard to reach places like behind the toilet bowl or under the sink — you’ll be glad that you did.
  • Horizontals — For your counters and ledges, follow the same advice as above, letting the areas soak in the cleaning agent for 15 minutes before scrubbing or wiping down.
  • Cabinets, closets, drawers — If these spaces are clean but dusty, first dust the areas off first using either a cleaner or a wet and clean towel, followed by drying and airing out. Be sure to sweep up the floors in your closets and storage spaces as well. If you’ve purchased dividers or contact paper, this would be the best time to install them.

    • Step 3: Sort Your Stuff Into Sections

    This is the biggest part of this task. You want to group like items together. Some suggestions:

  • Everyday items. Group the items you use every day. This includes your moisturizer, makeup, face cream, shaving items and whatever else is in your daily routine. You’ll want to keep these close at hand. This means you should designate a drawer, a basket, or perhaps a box with a lid within reach of the mirror.
  • Medications. Keep medications in a convenient but hard-to-access location for children. Do not throw away or flush medications down the toilet, as this will contaminate your local drinking water supply. Most pharmacies will accept the bottles for recycling, so take advantage of this option and do it the right way.
  • Hair products and appliances. If you use tools for your hair care on a daily basis, you’ll want those in an easy-to-find spot, as well as a way to manage the cords. 
  • The rest. Group similar items with each other. Place extra toiletries next to other extras in a space that is close enough for convenience but far enough away to free up commonly used areas.

    • Step 4: Bring Back Your Clean Stuff

    It’s true that you haven’t mopped the floor just yet, but you’re not bringing your bath mats out yet (Remember: They’re still in the washer). This is where we begin to fill in the cabinets with clean towels and cloth items.

    In a bathroom with a pedestal sink and not much storage space, invest in a sturdy shelf containing stuff you need at the sink such as soap, hygiene products, or anything needed close-by. You may also want to invest in a mirrored medicine cabinet to store your toothpaste and toothbrush, hairbrush and other items.

    I like to use small baskets to round up cleaning supplies, washcloths, lotions and all the other things mentioned. How you decorate your personal spaces is up to you, so use your creativity and some inspiration and go for it!

    Step 5: Add Extra Storage Capacity

    Once you put things away, you’ll realize quickly if your storage space is lacking. Think about where you may have some wasted space, like the back of a door (see the shoe organizer used for products in a previous photo), the inside of a medicine cabinet door, some floor space (for baskets) or over the commode, where you might fit a rack. The backs of cabinet doors can benefit from storage racks.

    Final Step: Mop the Floors & Take Pictures

    Now that your bathroom is shaping up well, it’s time to clean the final area: Your dirty floors. Yes, they’re dirty, and while you did sweep up, you didn’t get them as clean as your bath tub or horizontals, so why stop now? Use your favorite mop, bucket and cleaning solution and give the floors a good once-over. Let the floors dry before entering, and once they’re done, take pictures and bask in the glory of having a beautiful bathroom.

    Happiness is a Clean & Organized Bathroom

    Having a clean bathroom means having happy guests when they come over. It also brings one a sense of joy and calm in knowing that one of the big worries in one’s life has been taken care of. By making the process easy, what was once a daunting task is now a cinch, and now that you have pictures to prove your prowess, bask in the warmth of knowing that you’ve found an easy way to accomplish a task many dread to undertake. Being amazing is a reward in itself and you’ve earned it.

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