How to clean and organize your bathroom and keep it that way.

So, if you're following along with me in the process of organizing and cleaning your entire house this year, we'll be working on the bathroom in February together.  Well, not really together.  I mean you work on your bathroom and I'll work on mine.

I thought I would use some photos of bathrooms I've staged for my clients over the past year or two. 

 One of the things you will notice about all of these bathrooms is that I use all white linens and light colored accessories.  

You'll want to work on only one bathroom in your home at a time.  

As usual, you'll want to check out each bathroom and do an assessment.

   Check out this post for the details.

Staged bathroom in a home for sale.

After you've done an assessment of the bathroom it's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.  

 1. Remove everything from the cabinet or drawer. Wipe out the cabinet/drawer and line with contact paper if desired.

2. Toss everything that is expired or unusable.

3. Sort items according to type. Example: hair products, face products, first aid products.

4. You may find that you have several duplicates. A lot of people tend to not finish up products before they open a new one. Consolidate the duplicates and promise yourself to finish up a product before breaking out the new replacement.

5. Now that you know what you have and will use, put items into containers to keep them organized and easy to find. Shop your house first to see if you have containers you're not using in other areas. There's no need to spend money if you don't need to. Square and rectangle containers are the best as they use space more efficiently. If you need storage for small items, use a drawer unit to sit inside the cabinet.

6. Store items you don't use often or only seasonally in the back of the cabinet or in an out of the way closet. Keep your most often used items near the front of the cabinet. Before storing paper products under your sink, make sure you don't have any leaks. Paper plus water equals mess!!


7.  Hopefully, you'll have a trash bag full of trash and a bag of donations to remove from the bathroom.

Staged bathroom in a home for sale

So how do I keep my bathrooms clean? 

1.   I make my own bathroom cleaner and spend 10 minutes every other day doing a quick wipe up of the sinks, counters, and toilet. If you have small children you might need to do it every day.  If you're neater and cleaner than I am, you can get by with twice a week.

2.  Once a week, I wash all of the towels (unless they need it sooner) and 2 or 3 times a year I wash the shower curtain and bath mats.  I also vacuum and mop the floor when cleaning the rest of the house each week.  

3.  Now, I'm about to share one of my secret efficiency tips. Every 6-8 weeks I color my own hair.  While the color is sitting on my hair (25-30 minutes), I tidy up the cabinets and drawers, getting rid of anything we don't need any more.  No one wants to be near me with stinky stuff on my hair so I'm left to clean without any interruptions!

4.  Once a year, I vacuum the exhaust vent.

So, now you have a plan to help you clean and organize your bathroom and keep it that way.  Go forth and conquer!