I love our studio apartment. The view is great and we get a lot of beautiful natural light throughout the day. The building is old, but has so much character. This also means that not all the rooms are easy to decorate. Our bathroom, for instance, is shaped a bit like a triangle, so making use of all the space in an effective way proved to be hard. Finally, after 3 years of playing around with what works and what doesn’t. Welcome to our San Francisco studio bathroom makeover post!
Our bathroom is a decent size for a city apartment. It’s big enough that Robin and I can both stand in it, but it’s not huge by any means. Our biggest struggle with this room was surface space and organization. Our sink is a stand-alone sink with just enough room to put a cup and soap on the sides. For makeup and hair styling obsessed girls like myself, not having enough places to store my products was a huge pain point.
We settled on this shelf from Target that sits behind/over the toilet to add shelving space in an area that was previously just a blank, unused wall. I found this wicker storage basket at Ross and it’s a perfect caddy for my daily things; my hairbrush, facewash towel, contacts, leave-in-conditioner. On another shelf, we have our handtowel and a cup to hold my cue-tips.The top shelf is where I now keep my glasses, phone when I’m listening to music and flowers for decor. This section is the most-used part of our bathroom, as it’s now all that surface space we lacked before.
To really draw the room together, I got this big cactus painting from World Market, which adds a delightfully whimsical touch to the whole room. I got this plant stand from World Market as well and put an elephant ear in the corner. It’s not 100% happy here, so we may be swapping this plant out for something new in the future. Our colorful bathmat is one I picked up on a trip to Nicaragua. So is the yellow hanging plant holder which we put in the corner for a pop of color.
Lastly, we got a wicker storage drawer system to put by the sink. The top drawer has my makeup, the second drawer my lipstick and the bottom has random beauty products. My makeup used to live in the closet on my dresser, but now it’s all in one place and in the bathroom where it belongs!
What I learned from this project is that organization is key. Having a home for everything is the difference between a beautiful home and a cluttery one. We’re moving onto finishing our living room makeover and our closet makeover. Stay tuned for those reveals this year!
