Making the Most of a Small Bathroom

When we bought our house 3 years ago our only bathroom looked like this:

Since we were already doing some other remodeling we decided to gut the bathroom before we moved in. We literally took it down to the studs and when my husband removed the old bathtub he found this:

Yes, 6 mummified mice. AND he was nice enough to leave them by the front door so I could see them when I got home from work! We live on a raised foundation so I guess it's common for mice to climb up under the tub in the winter to stay warm.

I'm sure you're so glad I shared that picture with you = ). Here is the after:

To make the room seem as big as possible we used the same tile in the shower as we did on the floor. We didn't want too many different patterns and textures in the same tiny room.

We also had an alcove tiled in the shower and use a dispenser to keep our shampoo, conditioner, and face wash. This keeps the tub cleaner and frees up space since there aren't bottles trapping water on the ledge.

A suction hook works great to hold the squeegee and wash cloths.

We also installed a curtain tie back on the side of the vanity to hold back the shower curtain and liner when the shower isn't in use. It makes the room look better and opens the space a bit.

We have a medicine cabinet mirror to hold toothbrushes and face wash. Ours isn't anything fancy but I've seen some pretty nice framed mirror ones lately so we might be switching that out soon!

Instead of installing a towel bar, we bought a large brushed nickel command hook to hold the hand towel. The towel tucks nicely on the side of the white cabinet between the mirror. And there is no damage to the cabinet if we want to change it up later.

We have similar command hooks on the back of the door to hold our towels. Our doors fit pretty snug in the frames so an over the door hook wouldn't work and our doors are original to the house so we didn't want to drill holes into the wood.

We've been wanting to get the bath mat off the floor when we're not showering since it's this guy's favorite place to lay:

Which I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't mean it was covered in dog hair all the time. Not quite what you want to put your nice clean feet on when you get out of the shower!

So last night I asked my husband to install another towel bar on the lower portion of the door.

Just what we needed! It works perfectly behind the door and you would never even know it's there!

We're planning on adding a master suite to our house in the next few years so we won't need to cram so much in this little bathroom, but for now it works perfectly for us!

What have you done to maximize space in your home?