Under bathroom sink shelf diy

What follows is a tale of two bathroom sink cupboards, they are the 2 main bathrooms of the house and as such have to store the most stuff. The primary item for storage is toilet paper as per hubby’s request. He in no way wants tp stored in our giant garage, out of the way, and replenished as needed, he wants a Costco bale’s worth in each bathroom. So I did.

Here are the before shots.

downstairs bathroom, nothing special but so much potential

upstairs bathroom, the hair trimmer for the boys is in the giant red/white bag on the left

the full span of the upstairs bathroom from cleaning supplies to bubble bath

I made three shelves as inexpensively as possible. I bought 2 wooden dowels for $14 and cut them myself with a saw into 8 inch lengths. I sanded them ($3) then spray painted primer on them ($6) and painted them ($8). I hand painted 2 stripes at the bottom of each leg with paint I already had.

I glued 4 legs to a large tile ($0.70 on sale) with a super duper adhesive called “No More Nails” ($8) and let it dry over night.

diy shelf made with tile

One went downstairs and two went upstairs.

organize under bathroom sink

organize under bathroom sink with diy shelves

organize under bathroom sink, hair trimmer now in sewn white bags on top of left shelf

I added 2 Command hooks too to hold a few things.

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Organize linen closet

Only one of our four bathrooms has any built in shelving and/or closet so it became the defacto linen closet. It wasn’t stuffed and cluttered, just that spot where I put everything bathtub related. Messy. Disorganized.

facecloths and children’s bathrobes

towels

ear drops and disinfectant

empty towel rod that we don’t use (there’s another one closer to the sink that we do use)

The first thing I did was get rid of half the towels and facecloths. Don’t worry, I have crafts planned for them. I do laundry at least once a day so 6 towels will more than cover 4 bare bottoms.

Then I stuck blue cardstock on an empty box and corralled the extra medicine cabinet-y things that we don’t use a lot. I left out the children’s Advil, eardrops and thermometer.

I rolled up all the towels and facecloths. I put the facecloths in a beautiful bowl we received as a gift that is not dishwasher safe so we hardly ever use.

I hung the kids bath robes on the unused towel rod. Then it turned out that I had a lot more space than I did before. I’ve always loved the Pinterest picture of an apothecary jar full of soap bars so I unboxed a few and laid them out. I put my pretty seed container in there too. Yes I know that the humidity isn’t good for seeds but the bathroom door is always open and we technically live in a desert so a pile of wet laundry will dry in 30 minutes if you open the washing machine door. I’ll chance it.

I’ll eventually buy some pretty Dollar Store flowers for the bottle I painted. The bottle had a grape vine raised imprint on it and I painted that in the relevant colours.

organize linen closet

organize linen closet

organize linen closet

Decorate and Organize a bathroom sink

As you recall from a previous post, I bought the giant, glass, apothecary jar for $24 to hold my face scrub, comb and hair product. The toothbrush holder was $4 at Target and I put one of my face serums in one of the toothbrush holes, my toothbrush in another and my razor in the third. Then the toothpaste tube goes in the longer opening designed for it.

That left Hubby’s side. I bought 2 soap dispensers from Target, on sale, for $9 each, fairly expensive compared to the value I’m used to seeking. But I needed something blue to match the bathroom and gorgeous enough to last until we save up the money to redo the bathroom (years). He got one for his mouthwash and one for his rubbing alcohol which he uses as an aftershave. That left the comb lying around so I popped it in a $1 vase/cup that we had bought to hold flowers as centerpieces at our wedding.

There, clutter free countertop, functional storage and pretty!

decorate and organize bathroom sink

I should mention the soap dish, ceramic and on sale from Avon. And the aqua cotton ball/Q-tip holder $7 from well.ca

Organize under your kitchen sink

Mine wasn’t that bad, mostly because we don’t own that much for cleaning supplies and I store the bathroom cleaning stuff in the bathroom. Still, there’s always room for improvement, mostly to make everything easier to see and reach.

organized under kitchen sink

The pink thing is a plastic bin that came with the house we owned 2 houses ago. One house ago I painted it pink for my pink and green laundry room redo. In this house it’s been in the garage since we moved in. I drilled and screwed two large L-brackets into the cupboard wall, taking care not to drill straight through to the other side, then measured the holes of the brackets that extended under the pink bin so I could drill a hole in the bin and screw-and-bolt-it to the L-brackets. It sounds complicated but the worst part was finding screws and a drill bit that were the same size.

I put the white kitchen bin bag roll in a plastic basket ($2 Dollar Store- my only purchase for this upgrade) as well as the roll of garbage bags.

The SOS pads went into the pink bin.

I used one 3M Command hook and one screw-in hook (again, don’t drill through the door) to hold the kitchen gloves and microfiber cloth on curtain hooks. Those curtain hooks are on of the greatest inventions ever. It’s a circle that will fit on most curtain rods (or hooks) and it has a pincer attached to grab the curtain, or dish gloves.

You could also use a binder clip instead of a curtain pincer.

for hanging things, not just paper

The rest was placed just so, so I could see everything I had under there.

Blue and Brown small bathroom decor

There are four bathrooms in our new house and they all need to be made to look pretty. They’ll be a work in progress because I’m not in the mood to spend money for nice hardware and fixtures, then energy to repair the walls under the current towel racks, after just having moved a complete household.

The bathrooms are robin egg blue and dark brown and the two colours do go together so I could go with blue accents or brown accents. I decided on blue and white just to make the space cheerier.

Before

small bathroom before

small bathroom before

After

small bathroom storage

small bathroom sink storage

How I did it

I already owned the blue garbage can ($1 Dollar store), the white leaf tray ($1) and the dark metal storage unit for above the toilet ($80 at Zellers 8 years ago) but we had to buy everything else.

Three drawer plastic storage unit in between shower and toilet- $15 (waited for a sale)

Floor to ceiling spring loaded shower corner shelves- $70 because there are absolutely no shelves or nooks in the stand up shower for shampoo and soap.

Giant, glass, apothecary jar on the sink that I tossed all my face wash and hair goo into- $20

Blue, plastic container for cotton balls and cotton swabs- $8

Tray on top of toilet- $3

4 little blue, glass vases- $7

Glass fishbowl- $8

White toothbrush holder- $2. It has 2 holes for toothbrushes so I put my tube of concealer in that second hole.

Lily fake flowers- $6

Orchid fake flowers- $2

Brown vase for lilies- $8 (80% off)

The towels, although cheap, were still about- $70. We only bought them as a stop gap because our regular towels are now too old and starting to disintegrate beyond my ability to repair, but really, I want very plush and expensive towels eventually.

DIY Dove body wash from Dove soap bar

Dove Body Wash

My favourite soaps are the Dove soaps: bar for handwashing, liquid body wash in the shower. I need the moisturizing soaps or my skin would fall apart. The downside of a moisturizing bar soap is that it cracks and breaks apart while there is still 25% of the bar left. I hate to fiddle with little shards of soap so as soon as that happens I replace the bar.

Not wanting to waste perfectly good soap, I break the pieces as small as I can get them, pop them into an empty pump bottle that I have and just barely cover them with water. Leave this on a window sill for a few days, shake and voilà! Dove Body Wash. Just keep adding more shards as they become available.

Keep your new toilet brush from getting “gooky”

One of my toilet brushes and been overused and mangled flat so it isn’t that effective anymore and needed to be replaced.

Here is my brand spanking new toilet brush and in order to keep it goop free until it also gets flattened from overuse, I sprinkled about 1/2 inch of Comet powder into the bottom of the brush holder. This kills any bacterial residue that’s on the brush, keeping it clean-ish for the next trip around the porcelain throne.

Comet in the brush holder keeps the brush cleaner longer

Homemade bath soap paint for kids, 2 ingredients: cornstarch and bubble bath

I was about to buy some for my kids to play with in the bathtub when I was thunderstruck by the power of google. I found several recipes, then changed them to actually work and here it is.

use the darker coloured bubble baths so you don’t have to add food colouring

any brand will do

Mix equal parts bubble bath and cornstarch. 1/4 cup of each is enough for one kid in one bath.

The great part about the bubble bath is that it comes pre-coloured so you don’t have to add food colouring. If it’s not dark enough or not the colour your kid likes, add food colouring.

I was apprehensive about adding food colouring in case it stained the bathtub, but it’s mixed in with so much soap that it doesn’t stick.

I gave each kid a cheap paintbrush in turn to paint with. It just wipes right off when you’re done.

Another dispenser option is an empty syringe. Ask for a few free ones at your local drugstore. They don’t have needles in them, they’re just the squirty bit.

Free laundry detergent recipe

free homemade laundry detergent recipe

I had been using the “melt it in water to make a gel” recipe, but even though it’s just soap, it was still a messy job to prepare. This recipe is a “dry” recipe.

Mix:
2 cups grated laundry soap (I used 1 cup of Sunlight soap and 1 cup of Pure Soap’s stain removing laundry bar)
1 cup washing soda
1 cup borax
1 cup baking soda
15 drop essential oil (optional. The best choice would be lemon since it has extra anti-bacterial properties)

Use 1/4 cup of mixture per average load.

Crochet soap holder & body scrubber free pattern

I didn’t really like the body scrubber from my one and only post on the subject, so I played around all afternoon, making lots of them and finally came up with a pattern I like.

Horizontal crochet soap body scrubber pattern
Ch 20. Beg in 2nd ch fr hook sc in each sc (18 sc). 3sc in last sc. sc in next 17 sc, 2sc in last ch. Join with sl st (40 sc -although keeping count of stitches is not that important. Rows are important.)
Rnd 1: sc in the sl st, sc in ea sc around. Join with sl st. (41 sc)
Rnd 2: sc in the sl st, sc in ea sc around. Join with sl st. (42 sc)
Rnd 3: Ch 2, dc in each sc around, sl st in ch 2 space. (42 dc)
Rnd 4-7: Ch 3, (skip first dc, dc in next dc, ch 1) repeat til end, sl st in ch 3 space. (32 dc, more or less)
Rnd 8: Ch 1, hdc in ea st around, sl st in ch 1 space.
Rnd 9: Ch 2, dc in ea hdc around, sl st in ch 2 space. Finish

Tie: Ch 60 and thread through the hdc row. Tie of ends. Use this as a drawstring around your soap or leave a little loop at the back, extending out from the holder, tie a bow in the front and you can hang you soap in a closet for aroma purposes.

open so you can see all the rows

closed, as would be used in the shower

I found this pattern to make a much better scrubber than the other patterns which just seemed to smear soap on me.