The Final Push: The Bathroom

Okay, I will admit that my actual bathroom/shower room is a mess because I let my daughter play in there during our nightly bathing ritual. It is not cool, and I am still looking for some safe organizing tools for storing the shampoo, razors, face soap, etc.

But, what I will show you today is the sink and dressing area of our bathroom. In Japan, toilet rooms are separate and I will not be showing that.

My make-up is kept in that little Le Sport Sac on the left. No, I lied. It's not my make-up, but it should be. 

My real make-up case is kept in the car so that I can apply make-up while my husband drives us somewhere on weekends. I can't/don't wear make-up during the week because I drive, and I obviously don't have time to apply while actually inside my house. What is inside this Le Sport Sac are some lotions that go on the face BEFORE applying make-up.

In the corner is a small jewelry box to hold what little jewelry I actually own. I don't wear much these days because of Luka's little octopus hands though.

Above that is a basket for my larger hair accessories. I hate my hair lately. It's going gray and it is getting wiry, so I often wear headbands and scarfy-type headbands to cover it up. This basket used to belong in the entrance way and was a place to hold keys, but I re-purposed it.

The two miso soup bowls are for my and Ailin's hair accessories. She has a lot of colorful bands and barrettes while I have clear colored bands and black barrettes. Can you tell?

In an international marriage, you'll find that there are some medicines of his which I would never ever take and vice versa. We have separate baskets for our medicine. 

The bottom photo shows the ONE towel rack in our bathroom and it goes across the shower/bath door. It used to be weighed down by everyone's towels and I was afraid the thin metal bar would snap in half. I finally thought of this simple solution. Labeled laundry clips. The third one is for "guests".

Across from that shower door, is our cabinet and I added these over-the-door hooks with the kids' names on them for their towels.

My latest solution - a Pajamas basket. Again with the pajamas!!!!

I found that every night before taking a shower and bath with the kids, I was going all around the house searching for PJs, underwear and undershirts. Where were they "thrown willy nilly" just that morning? I'd find them hanging over the unused crib bars, strewn across pillows, laid over the couch, on the living room floor, and if they were considered "dirty" in the dirty clothes basket (or at least, near it). Then I would walk around the house gathering up all the night clothes I needed (including MINE) and throw them towards the direction of the bathroom sink. Get the picture?

This basket not only serves to corral all items needed for dressing after the bath, but it is also a place I can store the PJs immediately after they are shed in the mornings. New, unworn PJs are still kept in the canvas boxes in the bedroom.

This room still needs work. I would like to figure out a way to separate laundry as we go so that wet towels are not kept in the same basket as say, my work clothes! I also would love a shelf above the laundry machine.