Organized trash: Dealing with space (and the lack of it)

A reader asked me to comment on those metallic shelves that we can place above the toilet tank to use as "extra" space. This very specific question came also accompanied by a much broader request: He wanted me to explain what can be done to "create" more space in his bathroom, as he has several creams, towels, cleaning products, body lotions, hair products, shampoo bottles, medicines and personal hygiene items etc, and apparently can't find a place for all those products in the cabinets and shelves that the bathroom already possesses.

If we combine both inquiries, we can resume the question as: How can we create extra space in a bathroom to accomodate all my stuff and still have a beautiful place?

It's not a simple answer but I can begin by giving you the bad news: That "extra" space above the toilet tank is not "extra" and is not even "available space".

Many home decor magazines provide abundant "tips" on how to create more room and optimize the space you have. And they always teach them as if they were the best kept secret since Fatima and with that upbeat and modern tone for "a modern person who lives a modern life in a modern house"... wow!

Some of these "tips" include installing extra shelves on otherwise empty walls and building cabinets in strategic corners and surfaces. The famous metallic frame shelves above the toilet tank are a classic!

But...

Sincerely... have you ever seen the pictures of those shelves in their very same magazine articles? Even with all the glamourous words describing the sparkling clean scene, the perfectly arranged towels and the very bright atmosphere, those shelves will always look excessive, heavy looking, mediocre, ordinary and cheap.

You know why? Simple... because they don't belong there!

Leave the area above the toilet tank in peace, for Christ's sake!

First of all, before organizing your bathroom (or any other room, for that matter), remember our mantra:

1) Circulation, circulation, circulation, circulation .... (you are hypnotized!)
In a bathroom, that should not be a good deal, and yet I still find bathrooms where the weight scale has to be moved out of the way every morning because the homeowners could never find a specific place for it...

2) Undertstand you cannot create space. You have to find a balance between empty space and used space. Unlike the general misconception, both are useful... we need empty spaces in our bathroom, as we do in the rest of the house... empty areas are not there just waiting to be filled out with more shelves and cabinets! So, next time you begin to think about installing more shelves and building more cabinets, go back to bed, take a couple of aspirin and wait until this feeling is gone.

3)I know I am not helping my reader so far. I don't support extra cabinets and shelves and he still has his bathroom stuffed with cosmetic and other personal items. So, why don't we BEGIN by reorganizing the list of items? Most of it is necessary, but I am sure at least a part of it is trash you should discard: how many almost empty shampoo, cream and lotion bottles do you have? How many towels do you need at your reach at a given time? Why do you need all your medicine (even the ones you never use) in your bathroom? Why do you have that ugly plastic ornament on the shelf? How many items you bought ten years ago, will never be used again and are still there disturbing? Goal: This initial list of items must be reduced to HALF of what you had in advance.

4) Follow step 3 as indicated and you'll see you don't need those horrible extra shelves. Easy, right?