It feels like too long since we’ve talked organizing around here. But that’s about to change, starting today! You know by now that I’m all about balancing function and style. I love to make my spaces pretty, but they also need to be practical!
This is why I’ve never been a big fan of pedestal sinks. They look pretty, but I find them to be so impractical. Where are you supposed to store anything?
For years, this has been my dilemma in our basement bathroom. Where do I keep the extra toilet paper so that it’s readily accessible? Where do I keep the extra towels? Where can I stash a few diapers and wipes so that I don’t have to run up two flights of stairs to the nursery every. single. time?
I finally came up with a simple solution! It was one of those, “why didn’t I think of this sooner?” moments. Only it didn’t turn out to be quite that easy.
I have always loved IKEA’s RASKOG rolling carts, and I have a couple around the house that I use for craft and project supplies. It finally occurred to me that one of these carts might fit nicely below the pedestal sink. I measured the space to confirm, then made a quick trip to IKEA {if there is such a thing}. I brought the cart home, assembled it, and then rolled it in the bathroom. Only it didn’t fit! WHAT?!
It was about an 1/8th of an inch to tall. I guess I didn’t measure quite precisely enough. Dang it!
My first thought was to buy a slightly smaller cart somewhere else. I had seen similar carts at World Market and Target. But the prices blew me away. I paid $30 for my IKEA cart and similar carts at other stores were averaging $99!
Ok, so I needed to make my IKEA cart work somehow! I considered running to the hardware store to look for smaller casters that could replace the wheels on the cart to make it slightly shorter. But then it occurred to me that I didn’t really need the cart to roll.
If I placed it between the pedestal sink and the toilet {rather than on the other side of the sink, where I had originally pictured it}, then I could easily access all of the “shelves” of the cart without needing to roll it out. I took off the wheels, and sat the cart in place. It was a perfect fit!
I folded a few bath-sized towels and placed them on the top shelf of the cart, along with an extra hand towel.
I tucked five extra rolls of toilet paper on the middle shelf, and then used the bottom shelf for diapers, wipes, and diaper cream.
The cart fits perfectly between the sink and toilet without crowding either one.
I bet you never knew that we had a BRIGHT orange bathroom in our basement! That’s because I’ve been a bad-blogger and never shared a full tour of our basement before {which includes a large family room and a bedroom that we use as an office, in addition to the under stair playroom}.
This vibrant orange bathroom is a fun and unexpected extension of our grey, white and orange basement decor {but I wouldn’t recommend orange paint for a bathroom where you put on your makeup, because the paint color definitely distorts how you see your complexion in the mirror}.
The basement bathroom is in need of a new mirror, and some kind of art above the toilet, but at least it is now much more functional! It’s so much nicer having these necessities inside the bathroom, rather than stored in a hall closet out of reach when you need them!
UPDATE: We have BIG plans for this little bathroom! The orange walls will soon be white, and we’ve picked out a new blue vanity {affiliate link} that will add both function and style to this space. I won’t be sad to see the pedestal sink go, and the rolling cart will certainly find a home in another room of our house!
Of course, the storage challenge is not limited to bathrooms with pedestal sinks! Upstairs, in the small bathroom that our boys share, there is a cabinet below the sink, but the pipes take up almost the entire cabinet leaving little usable space.
That bathroom is so small that there isn’t even enough floor space for a cart like I added to the basement bath, so I had to get even more creative by thinking outside the box…or rather, outside the bathroom. You can read all about how I solved that tiny bathroom storage problem in this post.
