Behind Closed Doors

This post is a little uncomfortable to write. I hope to do it with as much grace as possible, well, as much grace as someone talking about tampons can have. ;S

I'm a bit shy, when it comes to things behind closed doors, I figure there's a reason you close the door right?? So I thought about when I'm at a party and I realize my eye makeup is smeared and I need a q-tip, or I'm there and I realize that one hour of nervous chit chat with your husbands boss has used up 13 hours of your 12 hour deodorant's promise. Whatever it is . . . things happen at parties.
We're hosting a few holiday parties this month, and I made up a little kit to deal with . . . well, everything.

I call it my Powder Room Party Kit.

I thought of a few situations I've been in at parties (I bet you're looking at the picture thinking I've been in a couple of those situations), and made up a kit to handle each of them.
1) Matches in the bathroom. I'm not sure if I need to say anymore but I will for those of you who don't know what matches in a bathroom are for. When matches are lit the sulfur dioxide smell masks the 'other smell'. Better than any air freshener on the market ;).
2) Tampons, there is nothing worse than having to casually ask the hostess for a spare. Especially if she's had a few too many egg nogs and keeps screaming "What?? You Need What??" over the music, because I guarantee the second the music goes dead you scream out TAMPON!
3) Mouthwash, with a few little plastic shot glasses from the dollar store. There is also a roll of dental floss inside there, you could also offer some toothpicks.

4) Panty liners.
5) Some Medicine, Aspirin, Tums, and Benedryl. I always make sure to keep an allergy pill close at hand when entertaining and would suggest others do the same even if they don't have allergies. You never know when someone might really need one.
6) Small deodorants from the travel bins at Target. A couple of little deodorants is a good idea. I have a small note on them, suggesting people take them home if they used them because honestly we aren't going to re-use them, and throwing them out would be a waste.
7) Q-Tips, always handy.
8) A travel bottle of strong hold hairspray, a hair elastic, and a bobby pin!

We keep our kit in our main floor powder room, under the sink. Oh and I almost forgot to mention . . . EXTRA TOILET PAPER always make sure there is extra toilet paper! 

What's better than 1??? . . . 3

What's better than 1 towel bar . . . 3 towel bars.
I Love Towels, Clean, Dry Towels. I think that Clean, Dry Towels are one of life's little luxuries.
We have limited wall space in our bathroom. There was only one wall space that would fit a towel bar, and it was also the only spot we could put a full length mirror. The full length mirror won out and we needed to find a different spot to hang our towels.
Behind the door was the perfect solution. The perfect spot to grab a towel coming out of the shower.

The Chrome Towel Bars are from Homesense. I've always found that Homesense has great hardware for a great price. The Last 3 bathrooms we've renovated have all had Towel Bars and Toilet paper holders from Homesense.

Speaking of Toilet Paper dispensers . . . if you have kids or a husband and especially if you have both, your toilet paper dispenser should look like this.

This is the only way to get people to change the empty roll of toilet paper!!!

And yes, of coarse I always fold the toilet paper into a little point . . . that definitely wasn't just for this picture, this is always how the toilet paper in my  house looks ;).

One last glimpse at why 3 is better than 1.

Bathtub Caddy

I have always wanted a bathtub caddy but could never seem to open up the old pocketbook to pay for it. I was never really convinced that it was worth the money. I mean how often do you really get the chance to sit in the bath for a good long while with a book, and a drink. I've seen them in store's many times but I always found the price tag to be a bit steep.

We always do something when we buy something new, we call it "doing the math". It means we take the price and divide into the estimated amount of times we'll use it and get our cost per use. I knew I would use it, but how much, besides it's not really a necessity. This was my train of thought, that was until I found this chrome one for $2 at a local second hand store. Making the cost per use very low, even if I use it a total of 8 times over it's lifetime that's only 25 cents per use. Then there was the issue of storing it. Easily solved the caddy fits right under the faucet tucking nicely away when we are having a bath, with out a book and a drink. It also fits all the way at the other end of the tub when we are having a shower. It passed the Maillardville Manor test: will we use it (more then once), is it the best price possible, and is there room to store it. Three out of Three makes for a new bathtub caddy for the Manor.

In case anyone was wondering, yes I did pick that book for the picture because it was pink like the flowers, and if anyone is interested the book is Yuppy Puppy by Binky von Barksdale / Robin Zingone.
It's a very cute book we got as a gift when we first adopted little Max if you'd like to see more of it, check out our Amazon Store under Pets.

Bathroom Organization

Our bathroom is very tiny, we've recently been making strides to a greener lifestyle (more on this in a later post), which has cut down on our bathroom products considerably.  However we still have a fair amount of stuff to contain in a very small area. The vanity is the only storage our bathroom has, so we buckled down, threw out a lot, and organized the rest. Here is what we did.

Under the sink we bought bins, lots of bins. The blue bin on the left houses our bulk stock, q-tips, cotton balls, toothpaste etc. The blue bin on the right holds my straightening iron, curling iron and blow dryer.
The clear bin in the middle of the two blue bins holds my contact supplies, extra contacts, extra solution, glasses case.
The clear bin on the top left is referred to by my husband as my "lady container", charming. The clear bin on the top right holds extra bar soap and razors, we go through razors so quickly (bald husband and all).

The one drawer in the bathroom holds more then it should, deodorant, tylenol, scrubby pads, hairbrush, stomach remedies, hair elastics, vitamin dispenser plus alot more. The bins in the drawer are from Ikea they are part of the Godmorgon line. Godmorgon has many different components, there are bins like we have or cosmetic organizers, I wish I could buy all of them.
Under our only drawer is our two tier lazy susan. It's worth it's weight in gold. The bottom tier holds my hair products on one half and cleaning supplies on the other. The top tier holds our vitamins (once a week I dish out Lee's vitamins into a weekly organizer).

We keep our shower organized with a corner shelving unit. It keeps the tub deck clear, just remember to get one with deep baskets so that your products stay put and don't slide out. We store our bubble bath on the bottom basket, so it's in easy reach when sitting in the tub. The shampoo and conditioner are kept on a higher shelf so I can reach it when showering, and on the top shelf, we keep the shower cleaner. The shower organizer is extremely useful, and worth every penny.

The towel rack above the toilet keeps our towels together and within easy reach of the shower, and the baskets on the other side of the vanity hold our "back-up" towels and face cloths.

We keep our toilet paper in a holder across from the toilet. I keep my daily products on a tray on the counter, and we keep our epson salts in a glass jar beside my tray.
While I could buy organizers for the bathroom all I want, the truth is that we had to get rid of a lot of unnecessary products to make everything fit. Honestly it wasn't that hard, once we made the decision to switch to greener, organic products it was easy to trow away the excess.
To read more about the bathroom follow the Link here.