Move This Kitchen Essential To The Bathroom For More Countertop Space

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Sometimes, you don't need a big, bulky medicine cabinet to clear your bathroom counter of its clutter. Instead, if you consider yourself a master MacGyverer, you may want to turn a plain dish rack into a bathroom shelf. Such a shelf doesn't take much effort or material to make. Yet, it'll be big enough to hold most of your bathroom goodies, like bottles of soap, and small enough to still look elegant. Moreover, because you're DIYing this, you can make it as wide or as narrow as your needs dictate. Best of all, once your small bathroom shelf is built, you'll have more counter space for other stuff.

Head to Amazon for a bamboo dish rack, like the Samebuteco dish rack two-pack, and a few wooden boards like the Bright Creations Unfinished MDF Wood Boards for Crafts. These long, narrow boards become the shelves. If you prefer a natural look, leave the piece as-is. If you'd like the shelf to match your bathroom decor, consider painting it. You don't even have to paint the whole thing. Just painting the shelves adds a pop of color. For best results, sand and prime the shelves before you paint. You'll also need a few other items. Look for a picture hanging kit like the FUZANWJ Picture Kit, and follow the instructions on the kit to hang your shelf. Just be sure to get a hanger that is approved for the amount of weight you intend to place on the finished shelf.

Many bathroom items, like shampoo bottles, are quite tall — between 7.5 and 10.5 inches, and often pose storage challenges for those who build shelves into the walls of their shower area. Pump soap bottles pose a similar challenge to home organizers. Because this DIY shelf has an open-shelving design, it can be made tall enough to accommodate bigger items, like soap bottles. As such, you could maximize your shelving capacity when you're dealing with taller items like these. The reverse is true too. That is, if you need to make shelves that have fewer prongs between each shelf, all you need to do is move the shelves up or down. This makes this open shelf ideal for shorter items like nail polish bottles, lipstick tubes, and perfume bottles. 

On a different but related note, many home design lovers have embraced concepts like kitchen couture — a trend that uses well-designed product packaging as a part of a home's decor. While the name suggests that this technique is isolated to the kitchen, it doesn't have to be. The packaging on many cosmetics and bathroom items are just as lovely as any of those being used in kitchen couture. This shelf would be perfect for decor like this, due to its open-shelving design. If you want to try it out, look for cosmetic brands like Bésame Cosmetics and NEST New York Black Tulip Eau de Parfum to adorn the shelf with, as their packaging is beautifully decorative.