AT On... Small Bathrooms

Small is cool. Small is also green. A small bedroom can be cozy. A small kitchen can be efficient. A small home in general presents an opportunity to use space creatively, to tread more lightly on the earth. A small bathroom though ... a small bathroom is a different story.

We have a small bathroom. One small bathroom for two women -- two relatively low-maintenance women, at that. Still, for us, a small bathroom is often not cool; sometimes it's a pain.

But, perhaps, I'm overly sensitive today because another plastic shower caddy broke last week and we've been storing our shampoo, etc. on the floor of the shower.

Here are the issues:

- Shaving our legs is nearly impossible in our tiny shower
- Storing the basics (soap, shampoo) in the shower has become and issue -- the suction cup caddies don't stick and most of them take up too much space.
- Jockeying to spit while brushing -- well, that's OK
- But, maneuvering around another person in a 4X4 foot room at 5:45 am is not always fun.

Obviously, these inconveniences we suffer are minor and, for the most part, we've adapted. We often shave our legs over a bucket of warm water now -- rather than doing it in the shower. We take turns brushing. We stagger our routine in the morning.

We're getting by ... and some days ... the bathroom does feel just ever so slightly cozy.

Do you have a small bathroom? Do you do anything creative to cope with the space limitations?

(Image: Sproule house designed by Andrew Maynard Architects)

Originally published 2009-08-03 - CB

Comments (15)

We have a beautiful, but small bathroom. We also have a built-in shower curtain rod that's rather sturdy, and otherwise our tub/shower combo is a decent size, which is why we came up with this idea: We use a shoe organizer set up on the inside of the shower curtain to store soaps and other misc. items.

Our bath is not small, it is just set up horribly so there is little to NO storage. I got an idea off of Martha Stewart to hang a shelf above the bathroom door. We use baskets to store extra toilet paper, other bathroom extras (q-tips, toothpaste, shaving gear). Another great idea I stole from http://blackwhiteyellow.blogspot.com is to hang decorative hooks near the vanity area to store your hair dryer, flat iron, head bands and so on.

Honestly, it's the quantity not the quality that bothers me at our house. Our bathroom is beautiful, but it doesn't do much for me when I need to use it and our seven year old is in residence on the toilet.

I feel your pain. Our shower is actually a good size at 3 x 4', and we, too have a shower caddy, but we also have a built in corner-shelf. But overall, our master bathroom is tiny at 4 x 4.5', and has hideous hospital-green tile from when the house was built in the 1950s. We recently started planning our budget-friendly update -- reglazing the square wall tiles to white but preserving the cool green/grey patterned floor, replacing the icky shower door with a 'frameless' option to create the illusion of space, and putting in a pedestal sink and compact one-piece toilet to give a little more room. We're also adding a long mirrored medicine cabinet (55") to make the space feel bigger, and above all, create storage. I can't wait until it's done!

We live in a 1940's home, with ONE small, tiny, teeny bathroom. I also have 4 boys and a husband. This poses many challenges, both in usage and in storage. Hooks installed on the back of the door are used for hanging the llBean cosmetic cases which store hairbrushes, hair products, extra toiletries. A small closet in the hallway has a shelf repurposed for hairdryers, straight irons and ridiculously large cans of hairspray. My boys - now pre-teens - require their own "stuff" which they now carry to the bathroom in caddies -dorm room style! They store all of their toothbrushes, floss, hair brushes, deodorant, hair gel etc. in ventilated plastic carry bins that remind me of my college days. They store them on a shelf in their bedroom and they always have their things together when they need them. And I don't have to fight my way through their stuff to get to my own!

We're fortunate to have two bathrooms. Mine is in the hallway and has lovely tile walls and floors, as well as a deep and roomy porcelain bathtub. However, because of plumbing and support concerns, we couldn't widen the door to allow my S/O to get in with his wheelchair ... so we built him a handicapped-accessible bath off our bedroom. He has a low-flow ADA toilet, along with a cute & tiny pedestal sink (easy access with a wheelchair) and a regular tub/shower combo.

A few tips I learned:

(1) Purchase an "over the showerhead" hanging tower rack. It's not that pretty but it keeps the clutter in the shower instead of outside it (or on the shower floor). The sunction cup racks never hold up.

(2) Use a curved shower curtain rod. It curves into the room (as opposed to the straight edge created by a traditional rod). I thought it was lame myself until I actually tried one. It definately creates the feeling of more space inside the shower.

(3) Use a white, airy shower curtain. It feels more translucent than a color (or printed) curtain. If you share with the kids who want the next-big thing themed bathroom, direct their excitement to things with less visual real estate. Shower curtain rings are an excellent example (take plain silver rings and add painted wood beads or whatever they like).

My bathroom is also a 4x4 closet, meaning that I have no tub, my shower cubicle's about a 2x2 space, and I have ONE cupboard under the sink (ONE) with no shelves. At all.

Here's the changes I made:

1. Since the shower has it's own walls and door, I don't need to worry about the curtain. But I did need a caddy, since there is NOWHERE in the shower to put anything! I went to Target and found a metal shower caddy that hangs from the top of the cubicle wall by two metal hooks; it's quite stylish and I don't have to deal with suction cups.

2. I bought stacking baskets for the cabinet. It's a large cabinet - at least 18" by 18" by 30" - so the stacking baskets work well for me; I just put the things I'm using currently in the top basket, and keep the overstock in the other baskets.

3. I slimmed down my "using" pile. Do I really need to use eight eye-shadows at once? Do I NEED three hairbrushes? No, of course not.

4. I put shelving in over the toilet (not one of those stupid over-the-toilet caddies) and in the little eight-inch nook between the shower and the sink. I'll probably put one over the door, as well.

5. I took down the medicine cabinet. I know, a lot of people are going, "WAIT! No! You can't do THAT!" but it was in the way of the tiny mirror in the bathroom by several inches, so I removed it for the time being.

6. I use the back of the door to hang towels, to dry various bits of unmentionables, and to hold tomorrow's clothing after I lay them out each night. There's also a mesh bag hanging there for the washing of unmentionables, since they get just as clean in a mesh bag and they're easier to haul and move in an apartment complex's laundry room.

7. I added ANOTHER mirror that goes along the wall where I took down the medicine cabinet and behind the door. This may be a good solution for the person who wrote this blog post. Put in another mirror! Somewhere! Anywhere! It'll make it a little less painful to get ready in the morning.

8. When I have a guest over, I let them have the bathroom. I brush my teeth and use the kitchen sink to spit. (I do, of course, rinse it out afterwards. Ick.) Since I keep my kitchen sink ABSOLUTELY empty of everything - plates, cups, food, etc. - it's no big deal to brush my teeth as I do a tidy of the 375 sq feet that I have.

We also have a tiny bathroom. Adding shelves would have been overwhelming, so we went into the walls with them. We created three recessed shelves with enough room for toiletries, extra toilet paper, lotions, etc. We made sure to leave one shelf with only decorative items for now, knowing we'll need every inch of space when our baby ventures out of the kitchen sink for bathing.

There are three things that have been life savers for me and my small bathroom:

1. Under my sink I used these mesh sliding drawers from the container store for all of my makeup, cotton swabs, unopened soaps, etc.

http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=186&PRODID=73574&_DARGS=/experthelp/f_Product.jhtml.1_A&_DAV=image2

2. I love this shower caddy from Simple Human. I have absolutely no clutter in my bathtub. It clamps around the shower head so that you never have to worry about it falling. Almost everything can fit on these shelves. It has a place for my razors and toothbrush (if you're into brushing in the shower, I guess).

http://www.simplehuman.com/products/bathroom-organization/shower-caddies/adjustable-shower-caddy.html

3. Having a wall-mounted cabinet over the toilet keeps things looking neat even though I pile in all of my lotions, perfumes, and face washes. I have a great streamlined stainless steel one that has a ton of depth because it was meant to hold towels. I hate those Bed Bath & Beyond organizers that have spindly legs which straddle the toilet tank. I got my wall-mounted unit at Restoration Hardware but I don't think they carry it anymore.

I'm not a huge fan of this one, but you get the idea:

http://www.landsend.com/pp/WoodWallCabinet~176078_-1.html?bcc=y&action=order_more&sku_0=::WHI&CM_MERCH=IDX_00005__0000001229&origin=index

We too have a shelf over the door where we keep toilet paper and tissue boxes. We bought an over-the-shower-head steel caddy, but since our shower head is in the middle of the tub rather than at one end, we put a chrome cabinet knob on the wall at the end and hung the caddy from that. A clear, printed shower curtain makes our bathroom look more spacious than a solid one. Glass shelves on the wall hold bottles. And finally, we installed a handcrafted, mahogany medicine cabinet from Wood Essentials:

www.woodessentials.com

The somewhat radical solution from Japan is to make the whole room a wet room. I considered doing that in our apartment. http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/green-tours/green-tour-matthew-and-emmas-eco-environment-084775 Put a drain in the middle. Hide a wall mounted toilet under a bench to sit on when you shower. I've seen hideaway toliets that pivot under a sink built into a shower unit in a book by Ashby Brown.

i moved into a very large apartment with a tiny bathroom. it's been less than a week and i already dread taking showers. the tiles go pretty high so adding shelving wasn't an option, and i didn't want to add more in there as it's already claustrophobic. thanks to whoever posted that simplehuman caddy, that looks like it may be a better fit than the one i have which is longer than the space between the showerhead and built-in and protruding soapdish, so the only way i can place it is skewing sideways - not pretty.

my solution has been to take things out of the bathroom. i now apply make-up at a vanity in my bedroom, and i bought an ikea wardrobe for storage for things i don't always need in the bathroom.

I took stuff out of the bathroom before too (like leee), but now that our bedroom is tiny too, there's no space there. Our solution was to:

a. Add storage above the door, apparently suggested by Martha Stewart. And I thought I was being all original. I used a thrifted medicine cabinet that I got for $4.
http://smazzle.blogspot.com/2009/09/before-after-bathroom-storage-solutions.html

b. Adding a curtain around our pedestal sink so we can store stuff underneath it.
http://smazzle.blogspot.com/2010/03/before-after-story-of-sink.html

And I too can attest to the ugly but functional over the shower head storage.

Also - look how cool this shampoo/bottle holder is! http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/shower-squid Loving it!