Hey there, friends! We had a rare weekend at home with no commitments, which only means one thing to me: time to knock some stuff of my DIY to-do list! My husband has been traveling and working something fierce, so he promised to watch the kids while I got things done all weekend long. He’s a keeper, y’all.
We’re still waiting for the kitchen cabinets to get painted, but I decided not to let it stop me from pulling off some of the projects on my list. Those tutorials will be posted over the next several weeks, but if you want a sneak peek check out today’s guest post over at The CSI Project– 10 DIY Ideas to Spice Up Your Kitchen. All ten are easy and inexpensive ways to spruce up your kitchen whether you are renovating it or not. I’d love to hear what you think!
Back to Saturday morning. As my DIY weekend revved up, I grabbed the cordless drill and started to get to work.
Noodle asked, “Mommy, why do you have Daddy’s drill?”
Oh no she didn’t.
There was a time I wielded that thing on a daily basis. After kids? Not so much. Time to fix that by tackling something that’s been annoying me for years.
First on the list was a project that’s been in my brain forever– adding in some storage for towels in our master bathroom.
Our master bath is really small. I mean, really really small. We have some open shelving filled with my husband’s beauty products, brushes, hair dryer and straightening iron… ahem, okay, those are mine… but they get filled really quickly. We needed a spot to store hand towels and washcloths without having to close the door, move stuff around and dig.
Here’s an {awkward} before photo. As much as I love this framed photo of a starfish I took on a trip to Florida, it was time for him to move over and make way for some towels.
The Solution: Hang inexpensive baskets for quick open shelving and easy towel access.
After a fun hunting trip to HomeGoods I found the perfect baskets to create shelves. They were sturdy and rectangular, but lightweight. All it took was a quick hit with the cordless screwdriver in four spots on the back of the baskets. I made sure not to push the screws all the way in, just far enough to hold it tightly to the wall:
Leaving about an inch so the top basket didn’t sit on the bottom one, I added the smaller basket above.
5 minutes later, and we have storage!
Such an easy project. So cost effective. Yet, such a space saver!
We love the ease of grabbing towels without having to search through the shelves hidden behind the door. It’s the little things in life, isn’t it?
Now I have a pretty way to store those pesky towels, plus it cost under $20 and took 5 minutes. Problem solved!
Ann On and On... says
Great idea! I will be passing that along to some friends. Thanks.
Amy Renea says
nice!!~
Alissa says
We only have one bathroom and it’s TINY, so we’ve really been hunting for towel storage. This is a perfect solution! Now to hope that HomeGoods still has some of these in stock! Thanks for sharing the idea.
Cassie @ Primitive & Proper says
super cute and easy! love it!
nn says
Looks great!!
Kim (TheMoney-Pit) says
Those are super cute. You want to be careful about too much weight or they will pull out of the wall (or tear through the back of the baskets). I did the same thing only I used L brackets to support the weight and I have been able to increase what I can store in them.. You can also add washers to the screws to distribute the weight a little more.
http://www.themoney-pit.com/2012/05/turning-baskets-into-shelves.html
I love the baskets you chose.. they are great.
Hani Shabbir says
Good idea! Thanks for linking up at Friday Fun Party. Have a nice weekend!
Beverly {Flamingo Toes} says
Your baskets look so cute up there!! What a great idea!
Shower Enclosures Brooklyn says
Ha! I love it!! I would have never thought of such an idea, and so much better looking then wooden shelfs to put stuff on. Genius idea.
-Solomon Berkovitch
Jennifer Marks says
Great Idea and I have similar baskets — so much better that the cheap looking metal rack we have — I was gonna use wine rack but this is even better.
polly plum says
I love the baskets-as-shelves idea!I also have a teeny master bathrm.. I bought a funky hatbox on the cheap with a 50 % off coupon at Michael’s to store extra rolls of tp., then 2 cylinder shaped boxes at dollar tree, for feminine stuff. I keep them all on the floor in front of the toilet, because no room for a shelf or cabinetMight look a bit strange as you walk by my bathroom when the door is open, but looks better than having a box of tampax and a bah of stay free on the floor.Don’t know how to post photos on this particular site, or I would.I don’t see a button.
Katie Adams says
This is such a great storage solution and it looks fantastic too. Thank you for sharing.
SS says
I found a pretty wine rack at garage sale, rolled a few towels. It’s pretty and functional
Carrie Higgins says
Great idea!
Theresa Clemmer says
Love this idea! To even be more spend thrift I will head to my local thrift store and look for baskets. If they aren’t the same color I will spray paint them a nice bright white. Love this idea. Will definitely be doing this! Keep up the AWESOME tips 🙂
Carrie Higgins says
GREAT idea, I’m such a thrift store junkie!!!
MaryHS says
I would recommend the candles be moved away from the baskets — heat rises, so if someone lights them in place, your baskets will get blackened at best — or worse, scorched or even catch fire.
Carrie Higgins says
Thank you, you raise a really good point– but truthfully I never light the candles and they’ve been there for 6 years. 🙂 I have young kids, so the only candles we actually light are the flameless, battery operated ones. But thanks for commenting, you are absolutely right!
GeeWillikers says
Beautiful! Can you tell me the color of that bathroom, I’m doing a remodel and i just love that.
What do you have on the floor? Hope you don’t mind a copycat 🙂
polly says
I love the basket/shelf idea!I’ve seen something similar with using window boxes to store vertically in a sm. bathroom.I think I’ll head to goodwill and salvation Army and see if I can get a few baskets or window boxes.
Dori says
Just Curious…the towels in your basket, are they bath towels, hand towels, or wash cloths? It seems like the space inside the baskets would be too small to hold bath towels. I love this idea though and am looking for ideas to create more space in my bathroom!
Carrie Higgins says
Hi Dori, they are handtowels and washcloths. I have my bath towels on a shelf but there wasn’t enough room for the smaller ones, so this solution works well. 🙂 But you can put anything in the baskets, as long as it isn’t too heavy.
Mel says
I hate the idea of storing towels above or next to the toilet. Read about this topic in a health magazine which brought up the fact that every time you flush, germs and bacteria rise a few feet above the toilet and it’s just not sanitary. Now I store both towels and tissues away from the toilet.
Melissa Madrigal says
I love this idea. We just bought a house and our master bath is very small. I’m going to use this idea. ….next mission is to find an idea for a toilet paper roll, free standing preferably. There’s no room to put on a wall. We also don’t have a rack to hang a hand towel, only one for bath towels on the wall and one on the shower door… Any suggestions one these? …I just bought mesh shower organizer bag for our shower items and hung it on the towel rack that is inside the shower(weird place for a towel rack) because we were have to put all of our shampoo, conditioner, body wash, bath sponges on the shower floor… The bathroom is very small. Any ideas will help