Quick answer
Add bathroom storage by combining a vanity unit, a mirror cabinet and recessed shelving. A vanity hides clutter under the basin, a mirror cabinet stores toiletries behind the glass, and a niche set into the shower or stud wall holds bottles without stealing floor space. For awkward rooms, bespoke joinery makes the most of every corner.
Start with the basin: vanity units
The single biggest storage win in most bathrooms is the space under the basin, and a vanity unit is how you claim it. Instead of an open pedestal with bare pipework on show, a cabinet wraps the basin and gives you a closed cupboard or set of drawers where the everyday clutter — bottles, cleaning bits, spare loo rolls — disappears out of sight.
When you choose, think about how you use it. Drawers are easier to keep tidy because you can see and reach everything from above, and soft-close runners stop the bang; they suit cosmetics, hairdryers and the small daily things. Cupboards are better for taller or bulkier items and tend to cost a little less. Either way, consider going wall-hung: lifting the unit off the floor frees the floor visually, makes mopping underneath simple, and helps a small Plymouth bathroom feel noticeably bigger. It needs a sound wall and proper fixing, which is exactly the kind of detail we plan in. For the made-to-measure route, see our bespoke bathroom design service, and for what one costs, our guide on how much a vanity unit costs.
Storage that uses walls, not floor
In a tight room the trick is to store upwards and inwards — into the walls — so you keep precious floor clear. Three options do most of the work.
Mirror cabinets
A mirror that opens to reveal shelves behind it — one fitting doing two jobs. Toothpaste, medicines and toiletries live behind the glass, off the worktop, with no clutter on show. Many now include lighting and demister pads too.
Recessed niches
A shelf set into the wall rather than sticking out from it. Built into the shower or a stud wall, a tiled niche holds shampoo and soap at arm’s reach without a single bracket protruding into the space.
Over-toilet & WC units
The wall above the cistern is dead space. A back-to-wall or concealed-cistern unit hides the workings and gives you a flat shelf on top, while a cabinet over the loo turns that gap into proper storage.
Recessed niches are worth singling out because Plymouth has so many stud walls and showers being rebuilt. If a wall is coming apart anyway during a refit, forming a niche between the studs costs little and looks built-in rather than bolted-on. The one rule: it has to be planned and tiled in as the shower is built — it can’t be retro-fitted later without opening the wall again.
Tall cupboards and the boiler enclosure
If you have the wall length, a tall storage cupboard from floor to near-ceiling is the most efficient store of all — a slim run of full-height shelving holds towels, spares and bulky items in a footprint barely wider than a vanity. It draws the eye up, which helps a room read as taller.
Many Plymouth homes also have an airing or boiler cupboard in or beside the bathroom. Rather than treat it as wasted, we’ll often re-line it, add shelves above and around the cylinder or boiler, and turn it into warm towel and linen storage — useful, and it keeps the appliance neatly boxed away.
- Full-height shelving for the biggest capacity in the smallest footprint
- Warm linen storage built around an existing cylinder
- Closed doors to keep dust and damp off towels
- Matched to the vanity so it all reads as one fitted scheme
Bespoke joinery scribed into an alcove turns an awkward gap into floor-to-ceiling storage that looks built-in, not bought-off-the-shelf.
Bespoke joinery for awkward Plymouth rooms
Plenty of homes here aren’t a simple rectangle. Victorian and Edwardian terraces have chimney-breast alcoves, sloping under-eaves space in loft en-suites, and odd corners where no off-the-shelf unit will ever fit cleanly. This is where made-to-measure joinery earns its place — a cabinet scribed to the exact angle of a sloping ceiling, or shelving built into a chimney alcove, uses space a standard product simply leaves empty.
It’s the same care we bring to fitting a basin or shower into a tight roof room — see our en-suite and cloakroom fitting service for how we handle the genuinely small ones. Bespoke costs more than flat-pack, but in an awkward room it’s often the only way to get real storage that looks like it was always meant to be there.
Open vs closed, and planning it in early
A quick word on open versus closed storage. Open shelving and niches look light and let you grab things easily, but everything on them is on show — fine for a few neat bottles and a folded towel, less forgiving if your reality is a jumble of half-used products. Closed cupboards and drawers hide the clutter and keep dust off, at the cost of a slightly heavier look. Most rooms work best with a mix: closed for the messy majority, a little open shelving for the things you’re happy to display.
The most important point of all is timing. Storage works far better designed in from the start than bolted on at the end. Plan it at the design stage and a niche can be formed as the wall is built, pipework routed to suit a wall-hung vanity, and joinery sized before tiling begins. Leave it as an afterthought and your options shrink to whatever freestanding unit will squeeze into the gap. In a small bathroom especially, the winning tactics are wall-hung fittings to free the floor, recessed niches instead of protruding shelves, a mirror cabinet doing double duty, and full-height storage to use the height — all decisions best made on paper first. We build that thinking into every bathroom renovation and full bathroom installation.
A full bathroom in Plymouth typically runs £4,075–£10,870, and because local pricing tends to sit around 9% below the UK average, thoughtful storage is one of the cheaper ways to make that money go further. For more on making a tight room work, read how to make a small bathroom look bigger and the best layout for a small bathroom.
Common questions about bathroom storage
How do I add storage to a bathroom?
Combine a vanity unit, a mirror cabinet and recessed shelving. A vanity hides clutter under the basin, a mirror cabinet stores toiletries behind the glass, and a niche set into the shower or stud wall holds bottles without using floor space. For awkward Plymouth rooms, bespoke joinery makes the most of alcoves and under-eaves space.
What is the best storage for a small bathroom?
In a small bathroom, store into the walls and upwards to keep the floor clear. Wall-hung vanity units free the floor and make the room feel bigger, recessed niches replace protruding shelves, a mirror cabinet does two jobs at once, and a slim full-height cupboard uses the height. Planning these in at design stage gives the best result.
Can you add a niche to an existing shower?
Not without opening the wall. A recessed niche is formed between the studs and tiled in as the shower is built, so it can’t simply be cut into a finished, tiled wall afterwards. If your shower is being renovated anyway, adding a niche costs very little — which is exactly why we recommend deciding on storage before the tiling starts.
Plymouth’s bathroom storage specialists
Let’s design storage into your bathroom
Tell us about your room and how you live in it, and we’ll plan vanity, niche and cabinet storage that fits — then give you a clear, written price with no hidden extras.