When you're a normal-sized couple living in an apartment made for small people, you have to get creative with storage.
We're not sure why the everything is so low in our apartment, because from what we've seen, Koreans are actually pretty darn tall! I have noticed that we are of average height here, even Nate, who is 6' 3". Who would have thought? In fact, I had the strange experience of trying on pants here that were too long for me, which has never happened. Typically, after wiggling into a pair of pants that I'm trying on, Moses' flood has nothing on me.
Anyway, back to organizing things.
Our apartment has a good amount of storage...in the living room and hallway. That leaves us with a mess of stuff in the bathroom. I don't have a ton of things, but a small medicine cabinet just does not cut it when it comes to storing make-up, contact solution, lotion, nail polish, razors, and the many other things that belong in that space. We do have a small ledge above the sink, but I hate how it looks with a bunch of stuff sprawled all over it. Here's a sample to give you a feel for what I'm talking about:
See what I mean? Here's our only place for storage in the bathroom, which was also a hot mess:
Yeah...
So, with a little bit of planning I set off in search of things that would help our bathroom be more organized, and I came up with some rules to live by when making tiny spaces more functional.
- Use that wall space!
- The bathroom doesn't have room for shelves or drawers, so the wall gave me the perfect space to add more storage. We are renting, so permanent solutions were not an option. To hang things, I went with hooks similar to command strips since the bathroom is completely tiled from floor to ceiling.
- Hang your towels on hooks, not bars.
- Bars are great, but they take up way more space than a simple hook. These are easy to find at any Lowe's or any supermarket.
- Find some cute jars to hold small items.
- Usually I use various sizes of mason jars, but they are SO expensive here. I just went with some Korean glass jars I found at Daiso. These are great because you can store things you need frequent access to, but need to keep neat.
- Keep things you use most in easy-to-reach places.
- This seems like a no-brainer, but I can't tell you how many times I've organized a space to make it beautiful, without keeping in mind what I use most. This means that I'll be digging to find something on a daily basis, and that creates more mess than anything. We're going for convenience AND cleanliness here, folks. For me, this meant keeping bobby pins, contact solution, face lotion, eye make-up remover, and mouthwash front and center.
- Get crafty.
- Try to up-cycle whenever possible, whether it's jars, hooks, or other items. This not only organizes your space, it gives it a personal touch that looks more like decoration than anything. I decided to use an old picture frame and some hooks to hang my necklaces:
Here's the finished product:
And the result of the finished product:
Finally, I don't have to worry about knocking my glasses into the trash when I'm blindly searching for them.
What things have you done to organize your small spaces? I'd love to hear your ideas!