A Little Colorful Chaos: 52 Spaces in 52 Weeks: Tackling the Master Bath

Let me start by saying this post is not sponsored by the Container Store. But it REALLY should be.

If you've been following along on Instagram today (shameless plug to follow me if you aren't: rachelalyse120) then you know the disaster that was my portion of our bathroom vanity. A few years ago we remodeled the master bath & I never officially moved back in. I literally just threw everything into the drawers & under my sink. Over time the situation has spiraled completely out of control. I knew as soon as I decided to do this cleaning challenge (catch up here), the bathroom was going to be one of my biggest priorities. So here we are!

I have to be honest, sharing this space is not something I'm particularly happy to do. In fact, I think this qualifies as being absolutely horrifying to share, but I've always wanted to be honest & real here, so it doesn't get any real-er than this.

So, this is what I've been dealing with/ignoring for the last ~~6 months~~ few years.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

My Approach:

One of the biggest problems I had was that there were no assigned spaces; each drawer was just a mishmash of products. So as I was pulling everything out from the drawers, I began to create piles of products that went together. I ended up with 11 categories:

1. Hair products (sub category: hair ties, clips etc.)

2. Hair tools (Sub category: brushes/combs)

3. Makeup (Sub categories: lipstick, eye liner/mascara, eye shadow, foundation, blush/bronzer)

4. Makeup brushes

5. Body products (body lotions, sunscreen etc.)

6. Face products (items I use every day)

7. Nail polish (sub category: manicure tools)

8. Travel size items

9. Medicine

10. Makeup/travel bags

11. Miscellaneous (extra tooth brushes, razors)

While I sorted through all this stuff, I also had 2 different trash bags going. One bag for products that had expired or were almost empty. The other bag was for items that still had plenty of product left, but that I didn't use for whatever reason. Los Angeles has a pretty decent amount of homeless & in my neighborhood, there is a few places where they go to look for free stuff, so I figured if I'm not going to use it, I'd rather this stuff go to people who need it vs. the dumpster.

Once I sorted EVERYTHING out & had my piles, then I had to figure out what was going to go where. I had 2 drawers & a massive space under my sink to configure to fit all this crap. It seemed to make the most sense to use the drawers for all the smaller items like the makeup & products I use on a daily basis. Then under the sink would be basically everything else.

I found this under my sink. Seriously?!

I'm a visual person & it helps me to write things down (I have lists going EVERYWHERE) so I grabbed some post its & began to split up the items that needed to go in the drawers & items that needed to go under the sink. It took me a minute, but it really helped me get organized by seeing it all written down like this.

Now it was time to head to The Container Store. I did have a few storage items prior that I was hoping to repurpose. Below are the items I found & what space I'm using them for. I pulled in items from ALL over the store, not just the bathroom section & this was KEY. So many useful items in other parts of the store.

I'd be lying if I said I got all this at once; it definitely took me 3 solid trips to get everything I needed. The most useful item in my opinion was the lazy Susan I used for ALL my hair products. For someone who has a lot of bottles, this is the perfect solution to keep everything super organized.

You also might notice the medicine & all the travel bags are missing from the pics. Since we don't have a medicine cabinet in our bathroom, I moved all the meds into the built-in cabinet in the guest bathroom. I also stashed my travel bags in the guest bathroom as well.