03.11.07
A Welcoming Bathroom
Most bathrooms can be improved with three simple steps.
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Have a guest basket.
 Having a maid tends to make you reduce the clutter that is out and about. (Even if you’re the maid.) Reversing this and putting everything a visitor might want in a bathroom in a basket greatly increases your visitor’s enjoyment of their visit. A broken nail or dry eyes may not rise to the level of needing to speak to the hostess at a dinner party, but if your guest can take care of the problem promptly, they will be more comfortable.
My mushroom-basket contains:
- Â spray deodorant (I think it is a teenage need, but someone sure uses it),
- anti-cling spray,
- dry eye drops (individual packets are available at the super stores),
- small clear pouch with nail clipper and tweezers,
- small sewing kit – needles thread & safety pins (although my skills make a stapler more appropriate),
- toilet paper roll,
- additional hand towels,
- hand lotion
- small baby powder
- small mouthwash (probably for teenagers, my husband kisses me as soon as he finishes the garlic bread)
- sunscreen,
- bug spray,
- a zippered pouch with sanitary supplies,
- tissues and
- hair spray (my guests use it for ink stains, not hair, as far as I know)
It’s technically not in the basket, but I also put a box of wipes on the floor by the toilet to clean anything that might not be up to my guests standards (What I really hope is that the males in my family use it – see Stephanie’s comment on the last post).
- Empty the medicine cabinet
- Wash your toothbrushes, cups, etc in the dishwasher on sanitiary cycle
There are absolutely appalling statistics* on the number of people who go sight-seeing through other people’s medicine cabinets and even worse stories about people pilfering prescription medicines from their neighbor’s homes. I moved all my aspirins, etc. to a high shelf in the kitchen. A locked first aid kit attached to a kitchen closet wall might have been better. (I’m fortunate that, unless you’re a dog, my medicine cabinet is pretty sparse.)
*Everyone cites a 40% at parties snoop statistic but there doesn’t seem to be any real research available on this.
I normally haul everyone’s toothbrushes, cups, and other oral hygene stuff down to the dishwasher once a week. If anyone has a cold, I do it once/day. This may have no discernable impact in a house of adults but I’m reasonably certain that if I put my son’s toothbrush under a microscope before & after there would be a discernable difference.
