Simple Bathroom Updates

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We are a family of six living in a small home. We have only one bathroom, and it happens to be in the master bedroom. Yes, it’s inconvenient. Yes, we’d love to have a second bathroom. Yes, we have to tag-team at times.

But, we’ve lived with this inconvenience for 11 years now. Our bathroom sees a lot of traffic. The end result is that it gets worn down looking rather quickly.

A few years ago, we did an overhaul on our bathroom. We changed the shower curtain, rod, hooks, cabinet hardware, and paint. This was great for a while. Over time, however, the walls look dingy, the cabinet needs to be repainted, the organizational items need to be updated.

That is what we decided to do last weekend.

We first looked around to see what new items we could use for organization. Which items could be moved to another place? Which items definitely belong in this small bathroom, but need to be better organized? Then I grabbed a laundry basket (my large container of choice!) and unloaded everything. As I went through the cabinet and drawers, I threw away broken items, empty bottles and tubes, and items that may have expired.

The obvious first choice was to paint the cabinet. What a difference two coats of paint makes!

Tip- keep a large dark trash bag next to you as you sort. This makes it easy to toss, and difficult to grab something back out of the trash. 

 

My handy husband then built a small shelf for the wall. It works perfectly to house all of those little bottles that young ladies seem to acquire, like nail polish, perfume, lotion, etc. It was a simple shelf and painted white, to blend in with the rest of the bathroom.

Once the paint dried and everything was back in place, it was time to evaluate which items returned to the bathroom. This took me more time than the unloading process. If my husband and I were the only people using the bathroom, this would have been easier. However, there are four other people using this bathroom and their needs have to be considered as well. I detest a cluttered countertop especially in the bathroom. But, I admit, sometimes there is simply no other viable place for an object. I try to keep those items to a minimum. This makes clean up so much easier!

While most of our bathroom is utility-oriented, I also like some items that are just cute. I tried to combine the two and came up with these jars.

These glass jars are recycled. I’m not sure what product they formerly contained, but I just washed them well and let them dry thoroughly. I mixed paint with simple white glue and painted the outside. This was cute, but then I looked through my washi tape stash and thought I’d add some color! I simply wrapped washi tape around the jar, then painted a coat of Mod Podge over the tape to seal it. For the bottom, I traced the jar onto a plastic disposable plate, cut it out, trimmed it to fit, and hot glued it to the bottom. Super fast and simple!

One of the glass jars now contains all of Mary’s braces care items. Sure looks better than the baggie from the orthodontist! I’m not sure what we will store in the other jar. For now, it just looks cute. We could store makeup brushes or combs in it. I’d like to find some shorter jars to store Q-Tips and cotton balls.

Of course, I also had to stock up on our preferred toilet tissue while I was shopping. We’ve used Quilted Northern products for quite some time. I found this new version, Quilted Northern Ultra Soft & Strong® Bath Tissue, on my last trip to the store and stocked up. We have a septic tank, so it’s important to me that the toilet tissue that we use be safe for septic use. In business since 1902, Quilted Northern products are safe for both septic and sewer systems.

Here’s another tip, buy in bulk! With six people in our family, and living 30 minutes from town, running out of toilet tissue or other bathroom essentials is simply not an option. I tend to buy the large packs and buy one per week, just to ensure we never run out. 

I’m happy with our simple bathroom overhaul. Yes, I still would love to have a second bathroom, but for now, it’s nice to walk into a clean, neat, and organized room again.

Is your bathroom in need of an update? No time or funds for a major overhaul? Just a few simple updates will make it feel brand new. It could be as simple as a can of paint, some elbow grease, a bit of time, and a few quick projects. What would you do to update your bathroom?