Hidden clutter is like a time bomb. It’s easy to ignore the mess when you can’t see it, just like that area under the sink.

This is what happened that motivates me to finally tidy up my hidden mess:

A few days ago, I was rushing for an errand in the morning. I jumped off the bed and went to shower straight away without realising that I run out of body wash. And then I remembered that I still have supply of new body wash somewhere under the sink. While still in a hurry, I began searching for the bottle of body wash among the pile of mess under my bathroom sink. I was in panic that I will be late the entire time and the rest of my day has already been ruined because of that.

Here’s how the mess under my bathroom sink looked like:

I made a promise to myself that I will tackle this under the sink mess as soon as I finished my errand that day. It’s not easy to find a motivation to tidy up the mess that you don’t always see. But hopefully this post will give you some encouragement so that you don’t have to learn it the hard way.

These are items that I use to help organise under the sink storage:

I begin by taking out everything and empty the entire space. And then I wiped the whole area to get rid of any dirt and dust. After that, I put a layer of shelf liner to protect the surface from any spill that I may accidentally make in the future.

When everything is nice and clean, it’s easier to work on the organising step. I believe we all have our own personal preference when it comes to organising, such as deciding which items are priorities and which aren’t. But I almost sure that arranging your stuff vertically is a smart solution to maximise the space.

Before I start organising, I sorted all my items and eliminated those that aren’t going to be in use to make sure I only store the ones that I need. These are those expired products, almost empty bottles, things that don’t belong there, and stuff that I don’t use anymore.

And then I divided my storage space into three different categories: fast pick-up, extras, and cleaning products. The fast pick-up is all the priority toiletries that I put on the open shelvings so that it’s easy to see and pick up. Extras are those other non-priority stuff that I put in the clear boxes. And cleaning products are those items I store beside the clear boxes that is convenient enough to reach when I need anytime, like when I need to clean the toilet bowl or spray some air freshener.

I run through my items one by one and start grouping them accordingly. I feel that it’s easier if you already have categories as the foundation to decide what belongs to what.

For example for me, bottles of body wash, shampoo, conditioner, facial wash, face masks, nail polished, cotton pads, and wet tissues go to the fast pick-up zone in the open shelving storage. The clear boxes are filled with mostly my husband’s products such as his razors and other men’s toiletries. Fyi, he is not picky with his toiletries so in the case that he run out of his shampoo, he doesn’t mind using mine, so clear boxes are way to go. Plus, they keep more items than open shelving storages do. Some products that I rarely need but doesn’t belong to the trash yet also go into the clear boxes.

As an alternative, drawers are great to keep more items than an open shelving and it’s easier to use than stacking clear boxes because you need to unstack the top box if you need something from the bottom box. But storage drawers are usually more pricey so I didn’t opt for that. But if money isn’t a problem for you, I strongly recommend using drawers instead of stacking boxes like me.

And finally, here’s the result of all the efforts that evening:

I like how everything is in sight and within reach. I also like that I can easily determine where to put the new stock toiletries the next time I buy them because I keep the categories in mind. But most importantly, no more messy surprise in the busy morning 🙂