How To: Use Extra Shower Curtain Rods to Increase Bathroom Storage & More

If you're anything like me, clutter scattered across the bathroom counter, on the shower floor, or on any other available space is maddening. Who enjoys a mess of shampoos, scrubs, and sponges strewn around their feet or just out of reach in the shower? What can you do when space is limited?

A second shower curtain rod can make all the difference.

You can place a shower curtain rod inside of your shower next to the wall, opposite your other rod (or top of your shower door), then hang cheap plastic baskets on them from shower curtain rings—as many as can fit.

Once your hanging baskets are added, you can fill them up with bath and body products, or even commonly used cleaning supplies. And you can use extra hooks to hang single items directly from the rod.

Of course, you don't have to hang your extra rod directly across from your preexisting one. You can place it anywhere along the shower wall, where the baskets of bath supplies can hang even closer to your reach. Or, get creative: if you want to keep kids' bath toys near them during bath time, hang the rod lower along then wall. (Just make sure it's still comfortable for you to actually take a shower in there.)

While shower curtain rods are great inside the shower, they're equally helpful outside. If you need more space to hang towels, add an additional rod outside next to your other one. Home improvement retailers even sell pre-made dual shower curtain rods like this one or this one, perfect for hanging anything.

With the double-rod facing inward, any drippy swimsuits or other wet items in need of drying will leave their water in the shower where it belongs.

Need more organization tips for the bathroom? Check out this guide to see how to keep loose hairpins under control, keep hairstyling tools together, turn baskets into shelves, and more. Yumi suggests using a tension rod inside sink cabinets to hang bottles from and using over-the-door shoe organizers to hang bath products from.

What hacks do you use to organize your bathroom better?