Bathroom Renovation: My favorite part! Plus inexpensive storage ideas

Happy Monday!! I hope it was a great weekend--and I'm sure it was if you're a Seahawks fan. We rooted for them, since our son is living in Washington as a missionary. (Catch up with him here.)

We're thisclose on the bathroom renovation. I will be posting the final reveal pics later this week, but today I want to show you my favorite part. Ironically, it's just the closet. Seems a little crazy, I know. But this is for real. I LOVE the whole thing, but I really, really love the closet. :)

As you can see in the before and after shot, the closet was a cabinet. You can't tell, but those ugly brown doors went from floor to ceiling. The frame sat on top of the opening, and then the doors were on top of that. The kids always hung their towels on the handles so the bathroom door would never open all the way.

I was firm in my decision that whatever new doors went there, they would NOT sit on top of the opening. I wanted to gain as much space as humanly possible, so originally I thought new cabinet doors would go there, but I wanted them flush with the wall.

Our general contractor (who we've decided is pretty much expert in everything) suggested that we close in the top of the wall to standard door height and then put a 6-panel door in to match the other doors in the house. He suggested getting a bi-fold door. Well, that was the best idea I'd ever heard. Sometimes I don't think outside the box very well, so I had not thought of putting a real door there. I'm so glad he did! (I guess that's what we're paying him for....)  The floor-to-ceiling cabinet thing was not practical anyway. We're not known for our height in this family, so it was never an easily reachable space.

Here's a shot of the inside of the new closet space. I'm in love, I really am. The old cabinet had fixed shelves, and Jeff thought of changing them to adjustable instead. It is so much more usable now! There's another shelf higher than the top shelf shown in this pic, and the space above that one reaches to the ceiling. I did get my hamper space at the bottom, and the kids like it so much they are actually using it. (Reverse psychology will do wonders).

For storage, Jeff had the idea to get those white wire baskets, one for each kid at home, for them to keep their own personal toiletries in (Dollar Store finds!) They love the idea, and the shelves are so much more organized this way. Jared, our diabetic, needs a couple of shelves to hold all of his supplies. We picked up the white 3-sided bins at Walmart ($4.97 for the set of 3) to hold his stuff that otherwise would get cluttered and messy. Medicines are stored in a basket on the fourth shelf from the bottom. We made a trip to our local Deseret Industries (thrift shop) and found a bunch of nice baskets to use for storage, each about $1. Can't beat it!

What is your favorite way to corral bathroom necessities and keep them organized?