Organization Ideas
ByAbby Lawson
These brilliant bathroom organization under the sink ideas will help you keep your bathroom vanity cabinet neat and tidy! Get rid of clutter and mess, and use these smart bathroom storage solutions instead!
Organizing the area under the bathroom sink can be tricky! It is often a fairly deep space, there are pipes in the way, and it can be hard to find effective storage solutions that fit perfectly.
After organizing a bunch of different bathrooms of all shapes and sizes over the years, I’ve found that although bathroom organization under the sink can be a challenge, it is not impossible!
These bathroom vanity storage solutions can help keep your vanity cabinet organized for good!
Bathroom Organization Under the Sink
This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
1. Declutter items you no longer love or use often.
Before we can start organizing, we need to declutter like crazy!
Christin at My Homier Home reminds us to be ruthless when we purge, getting rid of anything that is broken, expired, or is no longer of any use to us.
Thoroughly decluttering first ensures that we have much more space for the items we actually use, and we’ll be able to get to them much more easily.
Find all 7 steps of Christin’s bathroom vanity organization plan here.
2. Categorize under-sink items by type.
Buying cute bins may be the fun part of the organizing project, but before you run off to Target or open the Amazon app, you have to figure out exactly what you need to store first!
After you’ve decluttered, break up the remaining items by category so you can easily see what needs to be organized in the vanity.
Emily demonstrates this process beautifully over at Small Stuff Counts… how cute is her final bathroom organization under the sink?!
3. Install an outlet under your sink for easy access to hair tools.
I am always in need of more outlets in our bathrooms, so I loved this idea from Erin at Erin Zubot Design!
She installed a pull-out cabinet under her bathroom sink so she could access her hair tools easily. AND she installed an extra outlet so she always has enough space to plug in whatever she needs.
This uses the bathroom vanity space efficiently and makes it incredibly practical too.
4. Hang a garbage can inside your cabinet door to save room in your cabinet.
Space under the bathroom sink can be a hot commodity, so Stephanie at Abbotts at Home maximized every inch with this easy DIY cabinet door trash can.
The trash can is convenient and easy to use, and she saves space since she’s not giving up room in the main part of the cabinet.
5. Repurpose items from other spaces for bathroom organization under the sink.
I love how Erin at Practical Whimsy Designs thought outside the box, using this office desk organizer to corral her makeup to store it in her bathroom cabinet!
This organizer works well because it is already split up into various sections, allowing her to keep her categories of makeup together.
Just because an item “says” it is meant to be used in a particular space (like the office), doesn’t mean it can’t be used for a different purpose (in the bathroom)!
6. Add labels to your bins so everything has a designated home.
I love labels because they make it so easy to see where everything goes!
We may be familiar with the system we want to use for bathroom organization under the sink, but our other family members might have a hard time remembering where to put things back. Labels are a great solution.
My favorite types of labels are adhesive vinyl labels that I make with my Cricut cutting machine. But printable labels, label maker labels, and hand-written labels can all work well too!
See our full primary bathroom organization under the sink in this post.
7. Cover cardboard boxes with pretty contact paper for inexpensive DIY storage organizers.
Organizing doesn’t have to be expensive! I love how April at Love Our Real Life covered a shoebox with pretty paper to create a pretty and practical organizer for under her bathroom sink.
Phone boxes, envelope boxes, boxes from jewelry purchases, or even cutting off the bottom of cereal boxes and covering them in beautiful contact paper or wrapping paper could be additional ways to create cute bathroom organization under the sink without breaking the bank.
Get ready faster with April’s full list of tips and tricks here.
8. Measure before buying any new storage containers.
This tip is helpful for organizing any space, but it is especially important for bathroom organization under the sink! With pipes and other plumbing getting in the way, we need to make sure the organizing pieces we choose fit well and really maximize the space we have.
Michelle and Steph do a great job of choosing organizers that fit the space over at Sunny Side Design.
9. Protect your bathroom cabinets with pretty liners.
Not only do liners look pretty in the bathroom vanity, but they help protect the surface and make it easier to keep the cabinet clean as well.
I use this drawer/shelf liner in many of our bathroom cabinets and drawers, and it has held up well for us for years.
Get more bathroom organization ideas in this post.
10. Use a lazy Susan to keep smaller bottles and containers within easy reach.
Between skin care, hair care, makeup, and more, we often end up with a bunch of small bottles and containers that we need to store under the bathroom sink.
I love how Emily at Small Stuff Counts used a lazy Susan to corral these items, making them easily accessible with just a quick spin.
11. Use the vertical space on the walls inside your cabinets.
When space is at a premium, we really want to make the most of it! Erin at Practical Whimsy Designs hung Command hooks in her bathroom cabinets to help hold hair tools and other small accessories.
This gets them up and out of the way, freeing up space for other items she wants to keep as part of her bathroom organization under the sink.
12. Give yourself space to grow.
It is so tempting to fill up every available spot in our bathroom vanity cabinets. But though I’d love to believe that we can just organize once and keep everything the same forever, we are bound to acquire new items at some point.
When we leave ourselves extra space to grow in our organization systems, the new items we buy can have a dedicated home, rather than trying to jam them into an already packed bathroom cabinet.
In the photo below, I left two of the drawers in this organizer empty in anticipation of needing additional space later.
13. Keep your grab ‘n go travel items together.
Rather than having to gather up all of your small toiletries every time you travel, Christin at My Homier Home recommends keeping them stored together in a travel bag under the bathroom sink so you can just grab them and go!
We often use separate toiletries when we travel anyway, so it makes so much sense to keep them together so they are easy to snag whenever we’re packing.
14. Use large stacking bins to hold your extra toilet paper.
Toilet paper can easily get unruly and take up a lot of space in the bathroom vanity, so I like to use stacking pantry bins to keep it tidy!
This also keeps toilet paper separated from all of the liquids and gels that we may store under the bathroom sink so it doesn’t get ruined.
See our entire organized guest bathroom in this post.
15. Choose stacking drawers over lidded bins.
We are much more likely to maintain our organizing systems if items are easy to take out and put away.
When we stack a bunch of lidded bins to hold our items, we will inevitably have to unstack them, mess with the lids, and re-stack them whenever we need something. The more steps we have in our organizing process, the less likely we will be to maintain it.
But if we choose stacking drawers instead, getting to our items is as simple as opening the drawer and shutting it again. The process is more seamless, so we’ll be more likely to keep our organizing systems in place long-term.
See our townhouse bathroom organization under the sink here.
Bathroom Vanity Storage and Organization: Final Thoughts
Organizing a bathroom cabinet might be tricky, but it’s not impossible! When we put smart systems in place and think outside the box a little bit, we can have beautifully organized cabinets that stay that way for the long haul!
More Bathroom Decor & Organization Ideas
- 10+ Simple and Inexpensive Ways to Upgrade a Builder-Grade Bathroom
- How to Frame a Bathroom Mirror
- How to Transform a Builder-Grade Bathroom Vanity
- The Easiest Way to Install Beadboard in a Bathroom
- An Organized Powder Room
- 25+ Brilliant Bathroom Organization Ideas
If you’ll be organizing your own bathroom in the near future and these ideas were helpful, be sure to pin the image below so you can reference them later!
Thank you for following along! Have a wonderful day!
This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
