I was feeling claustrophobic in my friend Emma’s powder room last month. The room was probably five feet by five feet, with a builder-basic vanity that occupied half the space and a toilet wedged as close to the wall as humanly possible. But what bothered me the most was how her bathroom clutter existed only on the floor: cleaning supplies shoved into a basket, spare toilet roll tucked into a corner, hair straighteners teetering on the toilet tank lid.
The entire room felt cramped and cluttered—even though it was clean! “I hate this bathroom,” Emma sighed as she maneuvered around the cleaning basket for the third time that morning. “There’s nowhere to put things.” I stared at the blank walls. Eight-foot ceilings and not a cupboard above waist height? It was like living in a two-story house and never going upstairs.
Fast-forward a few weeks and I was standing in my own bathroom reflecting on how far I’d come. My very first rented flat came with such a tiny bathroom that I could touch three of the walls while sitting on the toilet.
Don’t judge me, I tried it too.
The previous tenant coped by screwing a single towel bar onto the bathroom wall. Brilliant. I spent months slopping around with a pile of products teetering on the edge of the sink before I realized that I had approached storage from the wrong angle.
It clicked when I was helping my sister clear out her kitchen cabinets after a renovation. The floating shelves she installed ranged from super-narrow ones for spices, deep cabinets for pans, wall-mounted racks for mugs. As I surveyed the shelving wonderland, it hit me: why don’t I put shelves in my bathroom?
Disclaimer: at the time I thought this was the height of brilliance. In hindsight, I’m sure everyone else had been doing it for years. Attempt one was, um, enlightening.
I purchased those pesky stick-on shelves from the pound shop. THREE NIGHTSHAVES WORTH OF STORAGE ADVISED ME WISELY. Half the bottles fell off at 3 A.M. when I forgot they were there.
Chemistry lesson: steam+rubber pads do not mix. Attempt number two called for some adult behaviors like drilling into my wall. I installed three floating shelves at staggered heights: one skinny shelf about eighteen inches up from the sink for products used daily (face products only, because why encourage someone), one wide shelf by the shower for tall bottles, and one tall shelf near the toilet for overflow items.
Suddenly I had counter space, and my bathroom felt twice the size. Wait, there’s more! The other trick?
Over-the-toilet storage. Behold the ever-neglected real estate lurking above your toilet tank. Most of us have loads of unused space above the toilet that we never think to utilize.
Bonus points if your toilet is close to the wall, like mine. Enter: tall, skinny cabinets. They don’t crowd the room like deeper bathroom cabinets, but they pack a lot of storage into a small footprint.
Bonus shelf = triple the storage! I picked up a slender IKEA cabinet (white HEMNES wardrobe if you’re wondering) that fit neatly into the space between my toilet and wall. It stores backup washcloths, extra toilet roll, cleaning supplies—you name it.
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The shallow depth means it doesn’t overwhelm the room, but having those three shelves makes a difference. Pro tip: watch YouTube tutorials before you install it. The whole thing took me about three hours with numerous trips outside for more dustsheeting.
I should’ve known something was wrong when Step 4 in the instructions used some words I’d never heard before (“BLAGGity”). I also mounted the top bracket upside down on my first attempt. My neighbors think I have Tourette’s syndrome the way I was swearing that afternoon.
But oh, once it was installed? Magic. It’s important to choose something that doesn’t feel top-heavy.
Big ol’ bulky cabinet over your toilet will make the space feel smaller. Something tall and thin, however, creates vertical lines that make the ceiling *feel* taller (I learned this when I “borrowed” my mum’s old medicine cabinet to see what the difference was—it was an incredibly bulky wood piece that made my bathroom feel smaller.) For light items like extra toilet paper and washcloths, wall-mounted storage is life-changing. I have a small magnet strip on the inside of my medicine cabinet to hold tweezers and nail scissors, and I splurged on a suction cup shower caddy that actually stays up (unlike the three previous sad-looking brands I tried that regularly auditioned for a spot in a Mack Sennett film).
Tip number two: think of vertical storage in layers. You have your floor-level layer (keep this to a minimum), your countertop level layer and just above, and then your high-up shelf layer. Imagine you’re organizing a closet—but think vertical instead of horizontal.
Word of warning: measure your crap. I installed an adorable little skinny shelf that looked wonderful above the toilet until I tried to put shampoo bottles on it and realized they were too big. Now it houses travel-sized shower items and I claim is “minimalist” when people comment on how few bottles are on that shelf.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. Related: buy reusable cotton rounds! Lastly, not all walls are created equal.
My bathroom has one wall made of plasterboard and three solid walls, and it makes a difference what you hang where.
Storage that’s heavier will need wall anchors or need to be screwed into a stud (hello, toilet roll!) but lightweight floating shelves used for decorative storage can use regular screws. My lesson came when I hung a floating shelf, loaded it up with lovely glass jars, and watched the entire lot crash down onto the floor.
Glass shattered everywhere. It was epic. Ever since that trip to Emma’s tiny powder room I look at small bathrooms in a whole new light.
There’s vertical storage galore if you just know where to look! Emma hung floating shelves and picked up a skinny over-toilet storage cabinet on recommendation from yours truly. Her bathroom isn’t drastically larger, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a phone booth any more.
She can walk around without tripping over baskets! She even swears it looks bigger. More importantly, she admits that she doesn’t hate her bathroom anymore.
And that, my friends, is what good storage is all about.
