homemaking hack #11: find storage in weird places

Okay, so I must love you guys a lot to show you this kind of organizational embarrassment. But I figure if you're still around after my last homemaking hack, I can't scare you too much. ;)

Here is our bathroom storage solution BEFORE:

Here's the story: as far as we know, our house is so old they didn't have bathrooms/toilets in it when it was built in 1895, so they added bathrooms by closing in parts of rooms. Our main bathroom is huge, but our most usable bathroom is about 2.5 x 5.5 feet in size. Since it has the only shower, this is also the bathroom that we all use to get ready. Which means all of our {my} toiletries are in the tiny bathroom. :) It's small for 6 people, but that's just part of having an old house, I think. 

I had this cart in there that created storage but it also took up 45% of our usable floor space in the bathroom. I've tried it in both places it will fit as you can see: 

But as I was thinking about it the other day, I realized almost everything I actually USE is in the basket over the toilet or my makeup bag. I didn't need three drawers full of stuff. In fact, the cart was mainly full of three years of hotel toiletries and products that didn't really work for me but I didn't want to throw away.

So we had this old dresser we repainted that we use for Zane's clothes now in the family closet area... in a stroke of common sense {not genius by any means, ha!}, I decided to move it into his room and use a drawer in it for bathroom storage!

On Saturday I cleaned out that cart full of old stuff:

And hallelujah, here is the AFTER: 

I only kept a drawer full {probably still too much!} and the rest was history. :)

I love how much lighter everything feels when you don't have transparent drawers of old junk taking up space. :D And this little project even inspired me to finally put the handles on the dresser and use it as a changing table again!

I love getting a little more organized and making things work that we already have. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at getting a cute basket drawer system for that bathroom and couldn't bring myself to spend the money on it. Turns out there was a better, free solution that helped me cut out clutter and use what I already owned. And it freed up all of the 4.5 sf. of floor space in the bathroom. Yay! :D

check out other homemaking hacks here!

Do you ever find unusual spaces to organize and store things?
I hide all of our gifts we buy under the bed too! {don't tell the kids! hahah!}. And here's the strange way we carry Legos on trips sometimes!

Any old house owners/lovers out there with me? :) 
I think having an old house and only 3 tiny closets forces me to keep less stuff- which is such a great thing! I sometimes get overwhelmed by how little storage space I have, but in reality it's actually a blessing.