Last month I was in the shower and reached for a towel when the cabinet I’d installed ‘temporarily’ before having a bathroom cupboard built fell over AGAIN. About six towels landed on top of me in a wet heap on the bathroom floor. “Oh for crying out loud!” was certainly not something my mother would have said but I muttered it aloud and realised that yes, becoming my mother is definitely happening. We’ve had several towel ‘incidents’ over the years before I finally figured out some semblance of a system.
When Danny and I first moved into our terraced cottage our bathroom came with one towel rail. ONE. Between the two of us with daily showers plus guests there simply wasn’t enough room for towels to dry.
They piled on top of each other, never properly dried out and everything smelled musty. I had tried those over the door hook things you can get from Argos.
D’OH.
Our bathroom door is one of those hollow-core, modern style doors that shake every time you shut them. Anything heavier than a hand towel would pull the whole door away from the frame. Very “Tumblr teenager” vibe I wasn’t going for.
Inspiration finally struck when I was procrastinating on Instagram. My friend Jess from work has THE cutest home (makes me happy and a teeny tiny bit jelly AF) and she posted some pics of her bathroom. Properly stopped scrolling when I saw them.
Simple floating shelves above her toilet with neatly folded towels arranged like something you’d see in a swanky hotel. Actually pristine towels folded neatly instead of haphazard piles of fabric like mine were. I measured our bathroom wall that night.
Danny thought I was insane staring at the wall while measuring bits that “nobody will ever see” and debating aloud about shelf height. But the unused wall space above our toilet was basically screaming at me to use it! Two simple floating shelves from the local builders’ merchants (£25 each) and some drawer handles later we had towel storage that was too cute to fail.
Placement matters more than you’d think. The lower shelf is at what I call towel hanging height. These are the towels you grab without thinking.
When you’re soggy and dripping and just want to dry off FAST. The top shelf is for guest towels or your ‘backstock’. Makes total sense now I type it out but it took me THREE different placements before I nailed it.
Open shelving = dust bunny heaven. Doesn’t everyone know this but when you Google open shelving bathroom the photos popping up are immaculate? Tiny white towels folded into perfect rectangles spilling artistically over the edges of the shelf.
NEWSFLASH: those towels probably have a weekly dusting session just to keep them that way! I get around the dust factor by only keeping towels I use regularly on the lower shelf and rotate them every few weeks. Still 100x better than our old towel-coffee table anyone?
Towel cough*holes on bathroom shelves. Friends mum came round to visit last month and LOUDLY announced she wouldn’t stand for her boys destroying open shelving in the bath. Said it with absolute ZERO judgement but I know my sister.
Her youngest uses towels like they’re bouldering walls. She opted instead for this tall skinny cabinet type deal that sits snuggled into the “alcove” next to the sink and against the wall of our bathroom. Looks like actual furniture rather than free-standing shelves.
Holds about twice as many towels and drawer space for extras. doors to hide away the uglies. Cost more than my shelves (£120-ish from IKEA?) but basically toddler/protester proof. Mirrored my sister and bought myself some serious towel-hook obsession.
Started with these stupidly strong adhesive ones from 3M. The ones that promise to bond with your tiles FOR LIFE. If it sounds too good to be true…/advises the internets.
Skeptical doesn’t begin to cover my feelings about things that promise to bond permanently to bathroom tiles. And yet here we are. Over a year later and they’re still holding our thick bath towels with zero signs of budging.
The key is rubbing alcohol. Clean the area of the tile you’re sticking it to with rubbing alcohol first. Learned that lesson the hard way after hook + towel plummeted into the sink at 6am one miserable Monday morning.
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Took me awhile but discovered my new favourite towel hook. Found these lovely brass coat hooks (THIS COUPLE) browsing a local vintage shop. (Yes I was in there looking at lamp bases, shut it). Proper vintage looking ones with actual screws to mount them too and apparently reclaimed from a school building site.
Seemed utterly wrong for a bathroom BUT my friend Lucy has them in her downstairs toilet and they work. Industrial/hotel vibe going on at her house that paired amazingly well with her white metro tiles. £8 each and they’ll outlive any cheap plasticky hooks you can get. Obsessed with THESE now too.
Similar shape to the hooks above but wooden. Saw them in my neighbour Sarah’s (THE GIRL WITH THE AMAZING FRONT GARDEN) kitchen and then later in her bathroom. Turned an OLD wooden ladder into towel storage.
AKA VERY Pinterest AND Country Living magazine BUT it works in her tiny bathroom. Stands up in a corner taking up minimal floor space and she keeps her towels separated so they actually have room to dry. Hand sanded down and some sort of marine sealing paint to withstand bathroom steam.
Skip the cheap stuff. Trust me. Our first cabinet was the cheapest option possible because STORAGE.
Lowes. Particle board with a paper thin veneer on the outside. You know the ones.
Came apart at the seems (literally) after about 8 months cause it started bowing in the humidity of our bathroom. RAN when I smelled musty cabinet.. Now I research inside and out.
Solid wood or at least respectable engineered wood, sealed properly on all sides with moisture barriers and adjustable shelves are KEY. Hooks on cabinet doors?! Say WHAT?!
Once you think outside the “ornamental shelves” of cabinet doors you’ll realise the INSIDES of cabinet doors are pure GENIUS. Thin tension rods screwed into the sides of cabinet doors create the perfect spot for hanging hand towels or washcloths. Takes all of TWO minutes to install and costs you next to nothing.
STORAGE SPACE YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED. Actually rolling works better for most of us. Give the military style fabric standing fold a go and you’ll see how impractical it truly is.
Looks insane until your toddler dumps water all over the floor and suddenly EVERYTHING PILES INTO A HEAP. Rolling keeps your towels in similar footprint but they’ll stay neater longer and when you grab what you need the rest won’t collapse in on themselves. Sort yours by colour.
White towels folded together. Bright towels together. Bath towels separate from hand towels.
This should be obvious but segregating your towels will be lifesaving the day you’re sleep running late and need to grab a towel in a hurry. Less is more when it comes to towels in cabinets. Towels need airflow to fully dry otherwise they stay damp and start to smell THAT smell.
Eew.
I used to stuff our bathroom cabinet so full of towels that they never fully dried out. Instead of overloading your cabinet err on the side of too few towels.
Position is everything. Unless you have a waterproof bathroom cabinet the cabinet next to your shower will never stay dry. Our ‘overflow’ cabinet used to live right next to our shower before I switchedarooed it.
Towels and bathroom drawers stayed SO much fresher being away from the shower + radiator. And there you have it folks. My evolution of bathroom towel storage.
It took some trial and error, a lot of failed attempts and obscene amounts of measuring…but now I can walk into ANY room and not fear an avalanche of textiles. Plus everything dries like it’s supposed to AND I actually know which towel I grabbed before leaving the bathroom. Victory!
