Alright friends! Let’s get this organizing party started, shall we? :) In my last post I shared what I do at the beginning of every January.. I make my annual “to organize” list. It gives me a plan and a place to start! One of the first spaces on my list this year that I wanted to tackle was my girls’ bathroom drawers.
My girls have a shared bathroom that connects their two bedrooms. (You can see more bathroom pics and sources here.) My sister and I had this same set up growing up and I have many fond memories of the two of us getting ready together every day. Lots of laughs, hairspray, singing, chatting, fighting, and solving hair issues together. One bad perm at a time. So of course I wanted the same for my girls. :) This bathroom has a lot of drawer space and while their bathroom (most days) looks lovely on the outside of the drawers, inside the drawers? Not so much.
Here are a few “befores” to give you an idea of the lovely mess I started with.
Every drawer looked similar… and a few of them were even worse than these. I had my work cut out for me!
I didn’t snap a picture of their floor during my clean out and I wish I would have! Whenever I clean out bathroom drawers that are this big of a mess I lay a towel down on the floor and dump everything on it. Then I fill up a sink with hot soapy water and scrub all of the inside of the drawers and any old organizers clean. This is a picture I snapped after I had washed all of the drawers and organizers and was starting to put everything back in its place. Here are the afters.. 
Ahhh! SO much better. For years I have used these interlocking drawer organizers from The Container Store for all of our bathroom drawers. They come in all different sizes and link together so you can create the perfect set up for how you want to organize things. Plus they are so inexpensive! They wash out nice, but if they ever get really dirty I just toss them and buy a few more. The little squares are perfect for those tiny things like elastics and bobby pins.
The next drawer holds my girls’ headbands and hair bows. I just used random organizers I’ve had for years.
One for all of the styling tools. It’s still surreal to me that they use these and do their own hair now! Growing up so fast.
A couple of drawers are for extra hand towels and wash cloths.
Curlers and soap.
And some drawers just hold miscellaneous things like their stage make-up from past plays. So happy “Cats” is a thing of the past. That was a fun play, but getting two girls in full on cat hair, make-up and costumes every day and downtown by 4:00 after school.. and then removing it all after 10:30 each night with emotional girls who were exhausted was not my idea of a party. So yeah.. good memories in this drawer. ;)
The small drawer on each side just holds their toothpaste, toothbrush and floss. New toothbrushes for a new year!
It feels SO good to have this little project done. Nothing special.. just CLEAN. Bathroom drawers can get out of hand quickly so I’m going to be checking these drawers often to make sure my girls are maintaining them. They loved the makeover!
Often I involve my kids when I’m cleaning and organizing.. especially when it’s their things. But in a situation when I know I will be throwing a lot away, I like to do it myself. I don’t want to be slowed down with “but I have to keep every single hair bow!” (even though most are falling apart and haven’t been worn in years) or “wait! I need all of those 18 chapsticks!” Easier for them to not know what they’re missing.
That they aren’t really missing. ;)
I usually have this yellow striped pitcher and some sort of flowers on my girls’ bathroom tray.
But this was how it looked in December… and still does today. Time for an update. :)
A few sources: you can find my girls’ bathroom rugs here (on sale in lots of colors!) and you can find the towels here. The organizers were all from The Container Store, tray was from Target (sold out) but here is a similar tray. The yellow striped pitcher I shopped from my mom’s house, but I just found it on Amazon! Many of you asked about it in earlier posts.. you can find it here. You can also find similar step stools here. (affiliate links used)
Yea for one space checked off of my list! That always motivates me to tackle another one. If you are organizing too and looking for more inspiration check out the posts below! My friends Amy and Christy from 11 Magnolia Lane are hosting their annual Operation: Organization series – always a favorite!
Happy organizing friends!
Monday January 9th
Wednesday January 11th
Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss
Friday January 13th
It looks great, Erin! I wish your two would show mine how to use all of those hair styling tools. Thanks for joining us again this year on Operation: Organization!
Thank you so much girls! Loved joining in this fun series again with you! xo
I love the organised drawers. These are some of my favourite little projects to do – they can be done quickly and give you IMMENSE satisfaction for dayssssssss on end :)
Thank you Marcia! I totally agree! :) xo
Love love this, Erin!!!
xx,
Sam
Thank you sweet Sam! I always think of my best organizing buddy this time of year! Miss you! xo
Headbands are such a hard thing to store – we have a bin but they get caught on each other. I made a holder from an old oatmeal container (Pinterest idea!) but it only holds a few. Maybe we just have too many headbands!
I’ve seen that on Pinterest Mary Beth! Cute idea. I used to have mine hanging over the sides of the bin but they just never stayed that way so I finally just tossed them all inside and that has worked better. I also threw away quite a few that were old and my girls weren’t wearing. :) xo
Ooooh…to have all that drawer space! Lucky! And the drawers look fantastic. I will say I have one of my drawers with some smaller bins tucked inside and it works fabulously. I also have some bins under the sink, but sadly they are over filled. Have to get on that. That pitcher is so pretty, but it’s now unavalable on Amazon. Darn. Oh well, I’ll just admire yours! :) Or maybe in the spring a similar one will become available. Thanks so much, Erin! Great post! Hugs!
Shoot Jeanne! I saw that! Hopefully it will come back in stock! I’ve always loved how happy that pitcher is. :) My bathroom drawers are looking pretty bad right now too so they are on the list! Tough spot to keep clean. Enjoy your day sweet friend! Are you covered in snow? xo
Thanks for sharing…. Looks great… I was wondering what is stored underneath each of their sinks and in the long cabinet next to the underneath sink cabinets? Your girls bathroom is a dream. I hope one day my girls will have something similiar and nice.
Thank you Summer! Underneath their sinks is extra shampoo/conditioner, hairspray, etc. I don’t keep much under there because they are hard to get to with the stools! The long cabinet and a few of the drawers are actually empty right now! I got rid of A LOT of stuff they didn’t need. :) xo
Fantastic! I love your organizing posts. What a dream bathroom for two growing young ladies! xxoo
Thank you Pam! More are coming. :) xo
This is on my list to tackle for our girl’s bathroom too. Teen and Tween in the house and it certainly needs to be sorted, lol! Love all the extra drawer space you have and we have purchased an older home we are remodeling so I’d love to have double sinks added too! Thanks for sharing it looks lovely!
Have a great week!
Blessings,
Jill
Thank you Jill! I know.. girls’ bathroom drawers get messy in a hurry, don’t they!? Mine are pretty bad right now too so I’m going to have to tackle them at some point. Good luck to both of us! :) xo
ditch those foam curlers for curlformers! they are easy & make less of a mess in drawers, etc. we ❤️them!!!
Oh my word.. I’m looking those up! I’ve never heard of them! Thank you! xo
Drooling over here with all of the amazing drawer space!!!! Another excellent building idea!!! GREAT job!!
Thank you Amanda! xo
This is great! I love getting organized in the new year! If you don’t mind, where did you get your girls’ step stools? They look the perfect height! Everything I have seen in stores is too short for my little one. Thanks for all of your great content!
Thank you so much Ashleigh! Those were from Children’s Place years ago! I just added a link to some similar in my post after several people have asked (near the bottom of the post). I’m not sure if they would be tall enough or not! xo
Love this! I recently organized my 7 year old son’s bedroom and he realized I threw away a lot of his stuff and he was not happy. Any tricks on how to handle this conflict? It was over scribble paper that he hung on his wall with scotch tape even thou he has a wall board with 3 clips in this room for this very purpose. The clips I filled with his non scribble paper. I was crushed that he was crushed. do your girls ever get mad over Mom purging? I am the same as you and I can’t stand clutter and things not in order. It drives me nuts. Do I just need to let his room be and not try to control it? This is a tough topic.
Amy this is SUCH a good question! My kids don’t like it when I get rid of toys at all! I have a little trick I do that I’ll explain in a post soon that really helps with this! Stay tuned. :) xo
Such a beautiful bathroom and a wonderful organizing job! Definitely jealous of all the drawers! We don’t have any drawers in our current bathroom and organizing can be a major challenge. I will definitely have to keep the white organizers in mind though for the other spaces in our house!
Thank you so much Mary! xo
Do your girls store their toothbrushes in the drawers? I’d love to get ours off the counter, but I’m concerned they won’t dry out properly shut in a drawer. Have you noticed that to be a problem? Bathroom looks beautiful!
Thank you! We do store them in the drawer and I haven’t had any problems! My girls shake the water off of them after they rinse them and they seem to dry quickly and do fine in the drawer! :) xo
So sad! These rubbermaid drawer organizers have been discontinued!
Hi there, you did an excellent job organizing. Gives me great inspiration! Do you by chance remember what paint color you used?
Thank you Erika! I wrote a post about all of my paint colors here:
https://www.thesunnysideupblog.com/2016/04/favorite-gray-paint-paint-colors-throughout-house/
I hope that helps! :)
Hi Erin!! Love your house. I’ve been following for a while now! I’ve got a girls bathroom just like this one (window in between 2 sinks!) joining their rooms. Can you give me the width measurement for this bathroom? I’m wondering if I can fit this many drawers in as you have. Also- are you glad you went with medicine cabinets? We have had our architect put them in our plans but both him and anyone who has seen them has laughed and told us to get them out of there. what are your thoughts? If we didn’t have one in our current bathroom we would never survive a day!