Showing posts with label bathroom organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bathroom organization. Show all posts

February 28, 2012

When You Become the Organizer!

I truly believe in the power of living in beautiful and organized homes. I also believe in providing information on how to organize a home or office, allowing someone to become more organized, living in more functional and attractive spaces and ultimately, making their life simpler.


Here you can see how a client, through Virtual Organizing, has organized her home after asking what she could do to improve and organize her bathroom cabinet. She sent me her photos and I sent her all my suggestions and a detailed how-to organize the bathroom cabinet instructions.


I really enjoy the exchange that happens with clients and fans when I am working with them, and as a Virtual Professional Organizer it is even more rewarding to see when a client takes the full project to completion and feels so proud of the results. I love this!


Here are some of her initial photos and as you can see, she could still find everything, but she wanted to have it organized and beautiful! 







And of course, best for last, here are her photos with the result of her work! I am very happy for her, for her taking the project and going through with it and even more, for how she's feeling for having accomplished it!






Helena Alkhas is a Professional Organizer located in San Diego, CA and offers hands-on organizing to local clients and Virtual Organizing to world-wide clients. 

I encourage you to leave your comments and if you feel I can help you with your organizing needs I invite you to contact me at helena@apersonalorganizer.com. Talk with you soon!

January 11, 2012

Organizing Bathroom with Multiple Users - and little storage space.

Here is a question from a Facebook Fan:
I have a question...how would you best organize a bathroom that is shared by three girls? (Don't laugh--:)) It has a 1/2 a cabinet on each side of the vanity, four square drawers in the middle and one medicine cabinet. There is a relatively good amount of space, but it's vague, kind of narrow and deep I guess. It's mostly the drawers that stump me. Not sure if I should fill one with headbands, another with brushes, etc. Or, if I should give each girl a drawer. Any suggestions?



Hello Distracted Mamma! Three girls and one bathroom, oh boy! No worries, we'll get that organized. I think that even if the girls share their hair supplies, on the long run they probably won't, so I think it's smart to give each one a drawer where you can keep the small, basic items each one uses: elastic/headbands, brush, combs and the like. On the larger (half-cabinet) area you could use long and narrow boxes (you can try Itso boxes from Target) or even kitchen utensils organizers, to have a tray you can pull in and out for easy access and that will make better use of a deep and narrow cabinet. Here you can have extra soaps, shampoos, body wash, tooth paste, Q-tips and items like these. On the other side you can store paper towels and hand towels (I'm assuming you have a linen closet and towels go there?) On the medicine cabinet I love to use a Medicine Cabinet Organizer in at least one of the shelves. You can keep everything medicine in there. When buying your organizing supplies always buy the same colors you decide to use in the space for everything, or if you prefer to organize the girls by color (I have twins and that's how people tell them apart!:-)) go for coordinating colors. If you have the space under the sink, use one of these gadgets: http://images.containerstore.com/catalogimages/110134/UmbraHideNSinkBathroom_a.jpg but my favorite arrangement here really is a shelf riser with 2-3 Itso bins underneath. I hope this helps you and simplifies the girls (and yours!) daily routine. If this doesn't help, send me pictures! I'll make sure you get an answer. :-)

May 8, 2011

Giving our bathrooms some TLC!







I hope that by now you are already enjoying closets that are more functional, practical and that have room to welcome those nice summer dresses you have been flirting with.

Today we’ll tackle the bathrooms! Those spaces many times overlooked, that get as much action as our beloved kitchens. And it will fast and easy!

Make yourself comfortable in front of your cabinets and pull out everything that is stored in there.
Take a look at each of your products and check for the expiration date. If you find something that you haven’t used in the last year, most likely you won’t use it in the next one, so be honest and throw it away. Also discard all products that have expired and put aside medication that are not in use anymore as well as past due date.

Now that you have been through all your products, look for what you have and see if you could organize it in small containers, creating groups like: face, body, hair, make-up, first-aid, hair accessories and anything else you find that can help you organize your products.

If you have girls, you know the amount of hair accessories you have there. Great containers for these items are the Snapware, stackable ones, with snaps on the sides and one lid on the top. You can organize them by type, by color or by owner and they will always stay neat inside, without spill overs in the cabinets.

In the past we were told to flush all expired or unused drugs in the toilet and down the drain; however contamination in the water supplies have changed the guidelines issued by the EPA, Dept. of Health and Human Services and other agencies for the procedures on how to discard these items. In this case:
-       Don’t flush drugs in the toilet unless the information that came with it advises to do so.
-       When discarding both prescription and non-prescription medication first crush pills and dilute liquid medication, then mix them with coffee ground, dirt, kitty litter and place it in closed plastic bag before discarding it.
-       Make sure to remove all the personal information from the containers.
-       Look for places in your community that would collect the expired medications. From time to time, large pharmacy chains hold campaigns for that purpose.
-       Your pharmacist is a great source of information, in case you still unsure about what to do with your expired medication

Now, off to the towels! Do the same with your towels and check for the ones that have spots, holes or that are just so old that you can see through it. Set them aside and if they are in “dignity condition”, put them in your car for donation, if they are just too old, use them as rags for cleaning.

Look around your bathrooms and see if you need to remove anything, like a painting which frame got damaged, a mirror that is broken, and a curtain that has seen better days and clean up.

Give yourself a treat and make your bathroom look like a spa. Put a glass jar filled with your favorite soaps on you counter or a candle with your favorite scent and your space is now clean and organized, your self-care time will be so much pleasant!

And remember, when it comes to counter tops, less is more!