Storage, in a Time of Limited Space (master bathroom edition)

Let me paint you a picture of my 'master' bathroom.

yeah this is a picture, 'painterly' words below

It's on the hall rather than connected to a bedroom, which I consider awesome because:
   1. I live here alone, so theres no need for the additional privacy of an en suite.
   2. In a 1.5 bathroom/2 bedroom unit, the off-the-hallway factor makes it guest/host friendly: cuz I am just fine with people NOT walking through my bedroom to get to the shower when staying over.
   3. For the future: it's very rental friendly. Two housemates would not go for a unit with a single shower that is an en suite. Having it in the hallway gives equal access. While I'm not going to be renting the place out for a couple years, I definitely kept that potential in mind when looking at places, and the hallway bath was one of the reasons that made this particular property stand out from the field. I have a good friend with a 1 bath (en suite) condo who loves to entertain, and it works for her because she is super neat and tidy; but I know my shortcomings, among them that my bedroom is almost never presentable enough to be a public thoroughfare.
So, long story long: I knew what in a bathroom would work for me, and luckily found it.

though it looked like this at first

While I do like my bathroom, it is standard 5'x10', which does the job nicely, but is not what anyone would call spacious. The vanity is small and mainly used for cleaning materials/toilet paper/curling irons/other big stuff. I have lots of soaps n lotions n hair products that needed a home though too. I'm a girl, goes with the territory, right?
I wanted to store all my bottled items within arms reach, in an organized and non-hoarder-ish way. The vanity counter top is small and looks cluttered with more than a few items. There is no room for a storage tower all occupiable floor space already has inhabitants (small grey trash can between tub n toilet, basket with rolled towels between toilet and vanity).

I'm excessively fond of this basket.
$10 at T.J. Maxx

As the saying goes: to the windooooow, to the wall..... or something like that. I have no window in there, so wall it was. I wanted to keep the space as open as possible, so though glass shelves would do nicely. As usual: enter Ikea, with the GRUNDTAL glass shelf.

$20 for 31"

I hung them on the same wall as the vanity, because the toilet sticks out underneath, so I wouldn't be running in to them there. Cuz if they were on the opposite wall, I'd have lost an eye in no time, and 'Pirate' is not a good look.
I really like how the paint color on the wall goes with the color of the glass.

Once the shelves were up, I needed bins of some sort to group small items, because I knew things were never going to be as sparsely populated as the picture above. I cut up an old t-shirt and crocheted it into a little basket with side handles.

lots of items, all in their place

It's adorable and I'm a big fan, but cutting up the t-shirt and crocheting gave me a blister big enough to stop after one basket.
I had 4 small grey felt bins lying around that I'd picked up on clearance from Michaels at some point in the unrememberable past.

I knew all that craft item hording would pay off at some point!! Most small items live in those bins.

Frequently used things live in the corner of the vanity and can be easily moved up to a shelf when people come over.
Face wash, sunscreen, chap stick, etc, live in the crocheted basket.
Jewelry gets deposited at the end of the day in a teacup I made in college and a saucer my mom gave me.
Toothbrush and toothpaste lives in a blown glass cup from an art studio in St.Louis I visited with my grandmother.
I really enjoy to interacting with special things on a daily basis to fulfill a need, rather than say going out and buying a matching bathroom set from Target. Not that I have anything against Target, it's just nice to use meaningful items rather than have them sit in a box or on a dusty shelf.

Ahhhhhh......organization I can keep up with, for $55.

-Lindsay

$2.50 Wooden Storage Bins

Things Organized Neatly is a blog that gives me goosebumps.

Because organization is a beautiful thing, and I'm horrible at it.

I have to create methods for organizing rather than claiming it as a quality that comes naturally. Organization works best for me when I can throw things into labeled containers rather then stack or arrange individual items. 

oooh la lots-o-boxes! 

A similar lots-o-boxes solution was needed in my garage closet for all the tools strewn over each shelf.

before the tool takeover

Most attractive, durable, and non plastic bins start at about $12 a pop. Which as with everything else, is too rich for my blood.
Through my Pinteresting addiction, I'd seen a good tutorial for making cheap wooden bins here.

My boxes would need to be bigger to hold lots of tools, and lighter so I could easily lift them when full of said tools. Handles on both sides were also a must.

Using closet shelf measurements, I figured out how big I could make the boxes. They needed to be narrow enough to fit between the shelf brackets, and low enough to leave an inch or two of space open at the top for  I'm-feeling-too-lazy-to-even-pull-this-sucker-out tool deposits.
I made a cut list and headed to the hardware store. The boxes would need to be made of real wood, as MDF just doesn't last. I found the least expensive plywood I thought would stand up to the task: 1/4in. x 4ft x 8ft underlayment. With some quick math wizardry (for which I am widely NOT known), I figured out I could do all the boxes with just one $14 sheet in just a few cuts. A lovely staff member performed all the cuts I needed for the 45 sides and bottom pieces to make 9 boxes. I also grabbed some inexpensive 1x2's and got them cut to size for the corner pieces.

At home, I assembled the boxes the same way that Kristi did in her tutorial. I did use fewer screws because I didn't need to attach multiple separate boards on each side. And I was running out of screws that day.

sandpaper and sponge brushes, reporting for duty

I then sanded all the edges, as many of the plywood pieces had splintered veneers from being cut.
A little polycrylic sealed them up and brought out the grain of the wood.

For handles, I looked at the cheapest hardware store options and they were unattractive and would have almost doubled the per-unit cost of the boxes. Nahhhh. I could do better.
During my pallet excavating at the firehouse for the pallet table, I'd seen a big pile of old throw away fire hose. There are all sorts of things being made of of fire hose lately, why not handles?

So I got permission, took one, and cut it up while on duty into pieces about 1.5 x 6in.
I drilled two holes in each strip and two holes in the front and back panels of each box.  The distance between the holes in the strips were about 1.5 inches greater than that on the boxes, so when I lined the holes up and bolted the pieces together, the hose strip would buckle and have room for my hand.
I painted on chalkboard squares in roughly rectangular shapes on the prettier end of each box and set them to dry.

 Handles were cut from the side of the hose with the most writing

I split my tools up into 9 logical piles, used chalk to label each bin, and loaded em up.
I went with chalk rather than a permanent label because I already had chalk paint and chalk, and it made sense to use them since the content of the bins will change over the course of their lives.
The current bin types are: Adhesives, Paint, Hardware, Cutting/Sanding, Frequently Used Tools, Tools, Extra Tools, Housekeeping, Pets.

Into the closet they went, all pretty and ready to keep me organized.

life is like a box of hardware.....full of nuts

They are fantastic for pulling out and grabbing a tool, or picking up the whole box to take with me to a project location.
This (and only this) closet is now a highlight on the house tour when people come over.

Cost breakdown:

plywood - $14

corner wood -$5

chalkboard paint - already had it

fire hose - free
  nuts n bolts -$4  

$23

Price per bin = $2.50

-Lindsay