I listed the lower apartment at Cherry Hill before we even closed on the property. Had we closed on time, we would have listed the apartment in summer, right when people are moving. But it did not go on the market until August 30th, making move-in date October 1. This is a tough time to list; most people try to move before the school year starts. We listed it at the last tenants monthly rate, and there was barely any interest. For those that did view it, their hearts sank when they saw the tiny bathroom. The apartment sat on the market, and it became clear that we needed to squeeze some storage into this small bathroom if we were going to get our asking price.
There is not much to work with. The entire bathroom is less than 30 square feet, which includes a shower (no bath, although the shower is 36″x30″), toilet, and single sink with barely any counter. There isn’t even a drawer! So if we were going to add storage, we had to go into the walls.
Cutting into the wall. There were two studs directly behind the mirror, so we had to gut those studs to get any cabinet in.
The first thing we did was add a medicine cabinet. Initially we purchased one at a local salvage shop and cut the hole to size. Once we had it installed, we decided to go a little bigger, so we ordered this Kohler recessed medicine cabinet.
A self-leveling laser level was critical in this process – we have one with a red laser, although I’ve heard that the green laser level can be easier to see in certain conditions.
Next, we added a floating shelf above the toilet. The toilet is in a little nook, so it was the perfect space to add a shelf. We debated adding two, but that felt a little too crammed, and a tall person would risk bumping their head. We had a floating shelf that we took out of our son’s room, and that worked perfectly once cut to size. Once in place, we caulked it to protect it from moisture.
We planned to do two more things, but ultimately decided against due to time:
- We wanted to build a toilet paper holder into the wall, but after we poked a whole in the dry wall, we realized that part of the wall was filled with pipes. It seems possible on the other wall, so we may add this recessed toilet paper holder later.
- There is a spot between the door and the shower that was mostly hollow. We wanted to add shelves with a door for towels and such. But when we cut a whole in the drywall, we found a stud right where we wanted our shelves. We may still add these, but elected not to this round.
I mounted some trim to cover the holes, and added hooks for towels. The trim is mounted to studs, so the hooks will be able to hold more weight.
The bathroom is still not large, but at least now our tenants will not need to store all their toiletries in their rooms!
