How to Recycle Old Bathroom Accessories

Home accessories today are expensive. That includes those that we typically use in the bathroom such as shower curtains, rugs, trash cans, toothbrush holders, tissue holders, and trays. Because we pay so much for these items, we often feel married to them forever. The good news is that it is possible to recycle some or all of those items elsewhere in the home, thereby freeing you up to redecorate the bathroom whenever you choose.

Instructions

How to Recycle Old Bathroom Accessories

1. Determine what you want to leave in the bathroom. Choose what you want to recycle.

2. Take a close look at the accessories that you have chosen to recycle. Decide if they can they be used "as is" in other areas of your home or if you need to to do a little work to make them usable elsewhere.

3. 

   Transfer old bathroom trash cans and tissue covers that are still in good shape to other rooms in your home.

4. 

   Use decorative bathroom trays for holding sunglasses, car keys, or mail when placed on a table next to the home entrance.

5. 

   Use toothbrush holders for holding pens and pencils on a home desk or next to the phone. They also work well for holding paintbrushes in the craft area.

6. Use cotton ball and/or Q-tip holders--particularly those with lids--on a vanity for holding the same or similar items. They can sometimes be used as a candy dish in the family room or to hold sugar packets in the kitchen.

7. Use a bathroom soap dish to hold old scour pads in the kitchen.

8. Use bathroom lotion dispensers in the kitchen to hold antiseptic soap for washing your hands or put one next to the bedside with your favorite skin moisturizer inside.

9. 

   Recycle fabric shower curtains a regular curtain anywhere in the home. Just top it off with a scarf or swag to hide the curtain holders or sew your own curtain rocket pocket into the old shower curtain to hang it with a standard curtain rod.

10. 

    Use fabric curtains as a throw for furniture or for general decor.

11. Use the fabric of a shower curtain to make throw pillows or to make chair pads for the dining area.

12. Make table runners to protect valuable furniture from old shower curtains.

13. Finally, look at the remaining accessories to determine how you can refurbish them to make them useful elsewhere in the home. With the help of paint, texture, fabric, or trim old bathroom items can be transported to just about anywhere in the home.

Tips & Warnings

• Use your imagination to choose anything you'd like to do with your former bathroom accessories.

• Be sure to use the right type of adhesives for the materials with which you are working.