HDYDI: Organize Under-the-Cabinet Bathroom Toiletries

Over the Christmas holidays I went on a massive cleanout of our bathrooms. I discovered so much waste, product purchase duplication and expired items. For me, that’s always been a hard place to organize. Important to straighten it out, but hard to navigate around the pipes and narrow door openings.

Then, I discovered this goldmine of organization for under the bathroom sink. I used some of my gift cards to the mother ship, The Container Store, and got to work. Here’s what worked for me.

1.  I started by dragging it all out onto the bathroom floor. This is about the time Scott retreated to the living room to watch football. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say the time for cleaning out under the cabinet was L-O-N-G overdue.

2. The trash can was overflowing with junk, as was the recycle bin. Everything left was sorted into like piles:  nails, makeup, feminine hygiene, dental hygiene, hair products, soap, etc. That gave me a better sense of what I had, what still needed to go and what needed a new home.

3. I put the bigger items back in the cabinet (toilet paper and towels) and then did a quick measurement of the remainder of the space. Luckily, The Container Store was having their annual shelving sale, so I scored everything 50% off. If you ever need a tour guide of that place, holler. The stackable bins come in three sizes. The vertical snapshot under the sink now allows us to see everything instead of piling it into the deep dark abyss.

4. Then, it was just a matter of putting things in the bins, playing around with the placement and maneuvering around the plumbing lines. In the demo video I watched, she suggested using museum putty to anchor everything down so it didn’t move. I opted out of that for a couple of reasons: 1) I wanted to make sure the system worked before making the extra step and 2) I wanted to see if it was really necessary. So far, I still haven’t used the putty.

5. The bins came with blank labels to insert, but you all know how I feel about plain white. I had some leftover scrapbook paper that I used as the backing and then I added a simple white label for each bin. Don’t worry, the pink is for me, I gave Scott the blue. Actually I think his reaction was something like, “You crack me up.” What can I say, I love to organize spaces and make them pretty, even if we’re the only two people that see them.

6. I did purchase two over-the-door storage units for hairdryers. That has proved to be the best purchase I made. I just had to account for the space they took up when I closed the door.

I loved the system so much, I cleaned out three more bathroom cabinets. I’m already seeing less waste because we can SEE what we have. Awesome!

Products I used:
Over-the-Cabinet Door Organizers (I got these on sale for $14.99)
Bin Organizers

For more HDYDI posts, visit my How I Do It Page.