We have just had a shower dome installed ! Beaut! Always wanted one. It is a Perspex dome installed above the shower, so when inside, there is no nasty cold little breezes flowing around your toush. It’s like being in a space pod! The downside is that our wire shower caddy no longer can hang over the edge of the glass side. Bugger! What to do?
Oh course, always looking to live frugally, I thought perhaps I could upcycle an old 5 L plastic bottle I found at work, so I googled “upcycled plastic bottle shower caddy” with not much joy. I even tried Pinterest. They showed my one dreadful granny-craft bottle caddy, but they also showed me an advertisement of something you could purchase online….and it sparked the upcycle idea.
I drew the basic design on with a permanent marker, anticipating how high the sides needed to be to safely store any bottles. There also had to be a hook to hang on the shower rail. All just a bit of guesswork and luck really.
No need to worry about the remaining lines, they can be wiped clean with turpentine. The curvy bits took a while to get the right shape so there were several attempts.
Using a cutting mat and craft knife, I cut the straight lines (the plastic was thicker than I had anticipated – great for durability but hard to cut). The curved lines had to be cut with a robust kitchen scissors.
After completing the cutting, I used a large drill bit to make holes in the bottom of the caddy for drainage.
The hanging hook seemed a bit flimsy, so I created a second one with the left over bits of plastic and glued the two hooks together for greater strength.
I find pegs are most helpful tools when trying to glue bits together. They hold your pieces together until the bond is made and the glue has set. After a couple of hours, our shower caddy was ready for use.
So….how did it work? We used the shower caddy for a few weeks until we realised that most of what we were storing in there were cleaning resources for the shower itself, and because the bottle I had used was quite big, it stuck out too much and got in the way of showering!
But all is not lost! Our shower caddy is most useful for storing all the cleaning bits like cleaning spray, brush, scourer and squeegee. It now sits nicely in the corner of the shower on the floor and is out of the way. The little hook works well when we want to pick it up and move everything easily.
Sometimes we learn lots by doing. I find I learn so much more about what not to do, than when everything works perfectly and to plan. I wanted to share this post because the idea still remains…we can upcycle an old plastic bottle for a shower caddy…just don’t go for the very largest bottle like I did and it could work quite well. I shall just have to keep my eye out for another thinner project bottle and try again.
