Bathrooms are the most private public spaces in a home. It's the place where some of your most private activities take place, the place where you hide your private self from the world (medications, glasses, your tooth whitener) and yet it also gets shared by visitors, friends and acquaintances alike who may or may not rummage through your medicine cabinet, look for extra toilet paper, use the closest (not necessarily the guest) towel. Keeping it presentable then is a good idea...
- If you have the space, corral towels in a basket (roll them up) or do what we do and hang extra towels on hooks on the back of your bathroom door.
- Put cleaning supplies in a plastic bin to keep them all together. In our bathroom we keep a shower spray, toilet bowl cleaner, windex and a mild scrub. This way they're in easy reach so that it's not hard to do a little bit every day - wipe down the sink after use, spray the shower, brush out the toilet -- and keep the mess at bay.
- Once a month, go through everything and toss any outdated medicines or products that are old or unused.
- Keep several extra garbage bags at the bottom of the garbage bin. This makes it easy to simply take out the garbage and instantly replace the bag, without having to search for more bags.
- If you have the space, put your dirty clothes hamper in here.
- Use a pump dispenser for soap. It's a good way to eliminate soap scum and helps to keep your sink clean.
- Think about what you do in the bathroom and organize your medicine cabinet in order of use. Move items you don't use daily to another space. We have a first aid box in a nearby closet that holds prescription medication, aspirin and band-aids, etc we don't use daily and a box to hold those items we use ocassionally (facial masques, nail polish and remover).
What tips can you share that help keep your bathroom presentable?
[image from LA House Tour: Kate and Damien Take It SLO]
Small Cool Lessons: Discovering Small Space Design Ideas That Really Work
Beatriz's Fun & Functional Workspace
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Sheex Bedding
How to Make Easy 3-Ingredient Energy Bars at Home
How to Make Fresh Pasta Dough in the Food Processor
i use a cabinet with a glass door above the toilet, and in it, i keep my cotton balls, q-tips and other essentials in pretty jars so that they look a little fancier than they really are.
for guests, i use a little rectangular basket that i keep on hand, and stock it with everything they should need for a shower, then i place it on the back of the toilet in easy reach. it looks nice, and nobody goes rooting through my things!
If you're renovating, plan a vanity with plenty of drawers instead of cabinets. Inside the drawers, use shallow plastic bins - I have one for cosmetics, one for dental hygiene, one for shaving (for my husband), one for mani/pedis, etc. The bins can then be washed if they get messy.
I also have one set of cleaning supplies per bathroom to make the daily "swish and swipe" easier. Or at least I did, when I wasn't in the middle of renovations.
Baskets are a must to keep items we use every day at our finger tips but out of sight.
Wipe down the sink after each use??? For real?!
My towels would be wet all the time - no thanks.
No, not after each use, but once a day (on the way out the door to work, usually).
I use a daily microfiber cloth to wipe the sink, vanity, and then the toilet. I'd say it takes 10-15 seconds, then it gets tossed in the laundry hamper on the way out the door. (You couldn't pay me to wipe down my sink or vanity with a regular body/face/hand towel.)
It's a habit I picked up from Flylady.net. She's a bit psycho, but her technique made my life a lot cleaner, more relaxed and more enjoyable. I actually do this because I *hate* cleaning.
Remember not to simply toss your expired medications...they should be disposed of properly to keep them out of the environment.
I keep a stack of cheap white washcloths handy for wiping the down the counter after my morning and evening routine. I keep them folded into quarters for about 3 to 4 uses each -- simply refold after using, turning the "used" side in until it's time to toss it in the hamper. They're easy to bleach if they get overly stained. When they're worn out, they make great rags for shoe polish or other greasy jobs. And my bathroom always looks fresh.
My partner and I have one drawer to ourselves with everything in easy reach, and hidden from prying eyes. Trouble is we are getting a housemate in the next few weeks and which means sacrificing our last drawer, ie. no extra fash washers, razors and toothpaste tubes easily at hand. So now I have to organise the cupboard space into more easily used shelves. :P lifes tough. lol.
Luckily at his old place he never actually had any food and is happy to eat what we eat and chip in for the bill; or my poor little kitchen may haave been full to bursting. :P
My favourite bathroom thing is the locking medicine cabinet I bought at Ikea. Usually I leave it unlocked - but if my nosy grandma, who likes to rifle through my prescriptions, is coming over? I lock it and take the key out.
http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/40012497
I keep toilet bowl cleaner, windex, and some Lysol wipes in the bathroom for quick clean-up/de-germification.
I had a locking medicine cabinet and promptly lost the key. Have you ever felt like an idiot calling a locksmith to unlock your medicine cabinet?
Now that I am a little better organized, I'd like to get one again. I think a locked medicine cabinet is very nice to have to keep snoops at bay. Who doesn't take at least one medication they would prefer not to discuss, or wonder if their guests/repairmen know they take?
I'm of the wipe-down a day persuasion when it comes to the bathroom. Plus, as soon as I see a long hair on the floor, it's time for a quick mopping. As for storing toilet brushes, my solution is to buy the cheapest one I can find (usually 98 cents), use it once, and toss it. Why are we keeping the most germicious implement around like it is an irreplaceable artifact?
An accent table and a standing towel rack can make a crappy bathroom a sanctuary - I used to use shelving and all these horrible organizers - I now have it simple - the vanity as 4 small dishes of necessary objects, there is a etagere with a large vase that holds combs & brushes, tissue and a handful of current magazines - the room with the shower - towel rack on the door for robes and linens - standing towel rack for drying towels - small accent gourd table with a remote for the radio and some lotions - white resin organizer on the tub - I take the labels off anything exposed - very spa like - all the makeup, the medicine stuff - under the sink and in the linen closet in baskets
"As for storing toilet brushes, my solution is to buy the cheapest one I can find (usually 98 cents), use it once, and toss it."
~~
I'm kinda horrified that we would think it ok to simply keep tossing in this way.
Buy a toilet brush in a holder that can be filled with a bleach and water solution - problem solved.
Just like asinner mentioned... microfiber. A quick wipe picks up and does not redistribute dust, hair, and whatnot, and I'll take a cleaner one and wipe surfaces clean and it's all shiny and fabulous, just takes a few seconds.
Ditto asinner and JoJenks - so easy to keep these things permanently clean (store 'em in bleach, I reckon), and so wasteful to treat them as disposable items.
ooh, i love that vanity cabinet - anyone know where it came from?
Yikes, throw the toilet brush away? Hope you don't clean it too often. More and more and more non-biodegradable plastics in our environment. How sad. :(
Maybe this is icky but I generally don't worry about cleaning the toilet brush... it was just in the disinfecting solution and I give it a rinse when I flush the toilet at the end of the cleaning so it's "clean" enough to sit in the little holder behind the toilet. Maybe I'd be worried about it if I had kids but I don't so... clean enough.
I stick the business end of my toilet brush into a small plastic bag (good re-use of grocery bags) and stick it handle up into my caddy of cleaning supplies. I don't wrap it or twist the bag, just keep it loose so it can dry. That way, it doesn't have to stay out in the open (I hate those toilet brush holders that sit behind the toilet), but it doesn't touch anything and spread germs.
I do the same thing with my tub brush (which is just a pot scrubbing brush with a handle from the dollar store). They clean a tub better than anything.