Organizing Bathrooms and Kid’s Bedrooms

Recently on AWTR, we talked about creating Standard Operating Procedures for our home, and we shared other tips to get started on your way to a more organized home. Let’s move on to bathrooms.

Here are some tips and tricks to keep your bathrooms clean and organized:

• Use a silverware tray to keep small bathroom drawers neat and organized.
• Use plastic totes to store each family members’ bathroom items.
• Mount a magazine rack to the wall to hold magazines and other reading materials.
• Over the door shoe bags behind the bathroom door can help organize rollers, brushes, and washcloths.
• Color code towels so each family member has their own color. When you ask the kids to hang up their towels, you know who the culprit is when you see one not hung up.
• Store bath toys in dishpans under the vanity or a mesh bag that can hang in the shower so toys can drip dry.
• Install hooks for hanging bathrobes and damp towels.
• Make sure your hooks and towel bars are where the kids can reach.
• Store prescription medicines on higher shelves in clearly labeled containers, out of the reach of small children. If you have a linen closet, you can hang a spice rack to hold medicine bottles.

Now, let’s move on to our children’s bedrooms. Older children should be able to apply these techniques to their rooms themselves but younger ones may need a little bit of help:

• When storing kids’ items, make sure to put the most frequently used items lower to the ground for easier access.
• Divide kids’ closets into two parts—one side for hanging clothes and the other side for storing items on shelves. Have two rods on the hanging side—a high one for off-season clothing and the low one for the frequently worn items.
• Buy assorted sizes of plastic bins so kids can organize and store their belongings.
• Make sure children’s books are easily accessible. Help them organize their books by topic or alphabet to give them a sense of pride in their growing library.
• Hang hooks or pegs at your child’s eye level for hanging coats, hats, and backpacks.
• Assign most-used items to the easily accessible drawers. For younger kids, you can use pictures that attach to the drawer so they learn where things belong.
• Regularly remove outgrown clothing from drawers. Drawers should never be so full your kids can’t open them.
• Avoid toy boxes and trunks. Small items fall to the bottom and you have to empty the contents to find them. I am a huge fan of those new toy organizers where there are three shelves and each shelf holds three buckets. Great way to organize toys and keep clutter under control.

Next month, we’ll continue  our journey with home and property and talk about organizing the master bedroom, home office, and garage.