After fixing up a couple of bathrooms and using them extensively (ha!), there are some items we really love. I love those home blogs where shiny new bathrooms look hardly used, and there is room for plants and fluffy towels and accessories. But we don’t have one of those bathrooms. So, storage and function are priorities. Here are some favorites:
A teak bathmat: No, it isn’t soft and fluffy under your toes when you get out of the shower, but it is elevated, and my dog won’t use it as a wee-wee pad. You never have to wash it! It also looks nice! Ours came from Target and isn’t made anymore, but this one is similar ($50):
Towels: Through the wonders of a wedding registry, we got a beautiful set of nice white towels back in 2011, and they lasted nearly 5 years before needing replacement. I did a ton of research on towels and landed on these Hotel Collection MicroCotton towels which I still love. I always buy white, because I like being able to bleach them, and I love opening up the linen closet to a stack of nice, white, uniform towels. Tony gives me a hard time about it, but I like to stack them with the fold out, so that I feel like I’m using a fresh hotel towel. It’s merchandising, for myself.
Shower Curtain Accoutrements: Do you hate taking the shower curtain on and off the rings as much as I do? What a pain in the a$%. I finally got smart and bought these rings, which slide easily across the curtain rod and which make getting the curtain and/or liner on and off easy. The secret is in the S-hook, which prevents your arms getting numb while you spend 30 minutes trying to detach and reattach a ring. No detaching or re-attaching!
I also love Target for shower curtains. My favorite things come from the Opal House line, which features simple but nice designs. In our Southside bathroom, I wanted a nice white curtain with a little visual interest, since our floors are so busy.
Vanity: We used this awesome IKEA vanity in the bathroom, and I love it because it has two BIG drawers that hold a LOT of stuff. It came with dividers in the top drawer, but you can also purchase additional organizers that help keep everything in order inside.
These little boxes create space for Q-tips, cotton balls, floss, ponytail holders, and all the other little things that would otherwise drift about the drawers.
Shower Organizer: After surrounding our tub in beautiful marble tile, I realized there was nowhere to store all our shampoos and such. Enter Simplehuman, who makes the best organizing stuff around. While this doesn’t look fantastic hanging over the shower head, it holds a lot and is fairly sleek and very functional. ($47; worth it!)
Storage bench: We added this IKEA bench next to our vanity; it provides a place to sit for lotioning up, or more often, a place to throw your dirty clothes and let them pile up until they fall off the bench, or until people are coming over and you have to hide them. We found rattan baskets that fit on the bottom shelf and use those for storing extra toothpaste, shampoo, etc.
Fixtures: I wanted matte black fixtures, and I wanted them bad! They add a nice look to the bathroom but, buyer beware, they spot terribly. If I weren’t lazy, I’d wipe them down every day as soap, toothpaste, and water leave visible white spots (easily removed). But when they’re clean, they look totes great. ($190 each piece, plus labor and constant cleaning)
Poo-pourri: Marriage-saver!!! Especially in a one-bathroom house. ($14.50)
Last but not least, the Squatty Potty. Cringe all you want, this thing is amazing. Hide it in the closet when company comes ($24.99).
Also, we still haven’t posted a finished bathroom picture (we’ll get around to that), but here’s an exciting preview (it’s gray).
T&A Fix It Up 