3 min readI love watching organizational videos on TikTok (especially pantry or fridge restock ASMRs), but in real life, it takes me a while to get my own home in order. The main trouble area for me was my bathroom shelves. In the bathroom, I had an uneven, recessed wall with two built-in shelves that were not only super deep, making it impossible to get anything in the back, but were also poorly sanded down and painted. The open shelving exposed all my bath essentials, which made the nook look messy.
I lived with this for two years before finally deciding to pony up for a custom cabinet. I finally bought one this year and enlisted my dad to help me install it. Once the cabinet was in, I got handles for the door and drawer (they’re from Lo & Co!) I then needed to organize all my products inside it. This is where I deployed what I shall call the “five-minute method.”
I took five minutes, give or take, to jot down a quick outline of which items would go into each shelf, prioritizing keeping everyday stuff within reach on the first two shelves. Since my cabinet is tall, anything on the third shelf would require a step stool to access, so I wanted to keep my non-essentials up there, like cleaning supplies that I use once a month or a first aid kit, which I’ve never used.
I tried creating the outline in my Notes app, but it doesn’t work—you need a pen and paper so you can cross things out, move around the categories, or even draw out the shelves to map everything out. My husband even wanted to break down the percentage of products we have in each category to help with determining the amount of space we’d need, but as a non-math person, this wasn’t too helpful for me. I am a visual person though, so a five-minute outline helped to satisfy my train of thought.
I have this empty space on the bottom that I kept piling things into.
My shelves with everything just thrown in and not organized yet.
After I drew out the categories, I looked over all my items again to make sure I didn’t need more or less space for them on each shelf. I got sidetracked looking at all my items and also started purging at this point. (I had so many expired beauty products I never even used, but had kept for years because they were buried in boxes—I tossed those immediately.)
Once my outline felt solid and I got rid of any items that weren’t serving me anymore, I then ordered organizers from Amazon. I knew I wanted to house small items, such as makeup, travel-size products, and face cleansers, in clear pull-out drawers, while medium-to-large items like body wash, contact solution, and cleaning sprays would fit best in pull-out drawers. Since my shelves are deep, I wanted pull-out drawers so I could bring everything forward and reach for it easily.
Once I assembled the organizers, I took everything out of my cabinet again and grouped them on the floor based on my outline. It’s much easier to move products around and rearrange things out in the open than to pull items on and off the shelves. When I was happy with how all the items looked in their respective bins on the floor, my husband helped me drill the drawers into place. We did get one slide-out drawer that uses adhesive strips versus screws, which is helpful if you’re a renter who doesn’t want to damage an existing cabinet.
We filled this drawer with towels, so now we don’t have to keep these separate in our guest room dresser.
After purging and organizing, we ended up with more space in this cabinet than we had thought.
After all the drawers were in, I filled them up exactly how I had outlined. I actually ended up with more space than I thought. Now I have room on the top shelf for another pull-out drawer, which I plan to stock with toilet paper and paper towel refills. This was something that I had not accounted for in the original plan, which makes me a happy camper.
Taking just five minutes to sketch an outline of inventory and where things can go is incredibly helpful. This lets you purge a bit as you look over your products and gives you a better sense of what types of bins and containers you’ll need that not only contain your products, but also fit into your cabinet. You can use this rubric for any area you’re organizing—not just bathroom cabinets.
