Master bathroom counter – ceramic toothbrush holder with toothbrushes and toothpaste; soap dish and soap; pile of white hand towels; stupid fake flower; Jo Malone candle (grapefruit), half-burned. Everything else is under counters or in drawers. It’s much easier to keep it this way since I live alone.
When my daughter is in town, there is likely to be an empty diet coke can or two on any surface, including my bathroom counters. Grrr!
My bathroom looks nothing like my kitchen. Two beautiful Japanese cups one holds my toothbrush and toothpaste the other is to drink out of and a soap dish. Dh’s side has his electric toothbrush and his contact lens holder. I didn’t put a medicine cabinet in the master bath and I wish I had. When I got sick last winter it was too hard to find the right little bottles in my drawers. But most of the medicine cabinet stuff (bandaids and other first aid stuff, nail polish) lives in the cabinet in the hall bath.
Since I love to read how others live, I decided to do my part:
I don’t have any bathroom counters. My bowl sink is set in a painted (black with gold highlights and floral design on back splash) 19th century wash stand, originally designed to hold a wash bowl. There is a soap tray attached to the wall above. There is a small antique hanging wall cupboard above the sink holding toothbrush, paste, floss, etc.
Opposite the sink is a painted 19th c cupboard that holds cleaning supplies, towels, toiletries. Inside, on an easy access shelf, is a small porcelain basket (HS graduation gift from my mother’s friends who wanted to be sure I always remembered them) holding my very limited collection of creams/cosmetics and I leave the door open while I apply them, utilizing an antique mirror (one of a collection decorating the bathroom, several of them the same date/style of the wash stand) next to the cupboard.
At the foot of my claw foot tub is a painted 19th c bench with a canton tray which holds shampoo, bubble bath, etc. I have one of those wire soap dishes that hangs over the side of the tub.
In the empty nesting house I have my own bathroom. My husband doesn’t really have counters in his either.
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My very small galley kitchen, although new square footage in an antique house, has period reclaimed wood floors, wainscotting, 19th c grain painted doors, windows, woodwork. There is a very large walk in pantry with floor to ceiling shelves.
I don’t have “normal” counter space in the kitchen either: just enough on one side of the room to hold the farm sink, the dishwasher and a set of drawers, in which to store flatware, utensils, dish towels.
The counter holds a restaurant style coffee machine that stays plugged in all the time. All other appliances stay in the walk in pantry when not in use. I don’t use them very often. Sometimes not for months. Huge fancy mixer that belonged to my mother stays in the pantry and I never use it. Small hand mixer that belonged to my grandmother is in one of the drawers next to the sink and that is the one I use.
On a decoratively painted 19th c dry sink next to my stove (opposite side of the room from sink) I have a antique blue and white crock with cooking utensils and olive oil and salt/pepper and a canton tray I use as a utensil rest while I cook. And a canton jar holding flowers. Stored in the bottom of the dry sink are all my pots and pans and baking dishes, basically anything I use on the stove or in the oven. Except: on the stove is a kettle and omelette pan, which match and stay out all the time because we use them daily. On top of a pie safe next to the sink/counter is the microwave. A couple of antique drop leaf tables pushed up against the wall on either side of the refrigerator hold the cutting boards and fruit/vegetable bowls. Some times of the year there are a whole lot of vegetables from the neighbors’ gardens. I use a collection of yellow ware bowls. There are antique wooden apple baskets on my refrigerator, which I use to store things I don’t want to look at, like extra light bulbs.
My flat spaces are fairly clear and organized in the kitchen. Nothing is out that isn’t supposed to be there. Besides having little counter space, we have no upper wall cupboards. All the everyday dishes, glasses, etc are inside the pie safe on shelves. We have paintings on the walls, mainly still lifes. I imagine it looks pretty cluttery to a lot of people. It all looks very serene and just about perfect to me.
One of my best friends, an architect who usually only does minimalist, contemporary design drew up the plans and helped create the kitchen and bathroom spaces. The basic spaces are the same as he designed for his own home (minus the pantry) but I have just finished them very differently. They are working extremely well for me. He could never live in this space, and was more than a bit distressed when I kept adding period architectural elements to both his interior and exterior design. When we first started, I didn’t know those elements were going to be available. For the exterior, I just kept saying: “if it doesn’t work, we can take it all back off” and he kept wincing and winding. But now I think he likes it. At least he likes it for me and he does like to show it off to other guests. Sometimes he asks to bring folks by I don’t know. He says our house is maximalist. I have to laugh because since he has spent so much time with us, he has started collecting himself. We are a bad influence.
Sounds beautiful, alh! I really get a nice sense of what your aesthetic is.
Bathroom counters: Cream colored Corian with 2 hexagonal shaped bowls that look like they come from a Roman bath. 3 banks of 3 drawers - h’s side, my side, middle. H has a soap dish and a few daily medications/vitamins corralled in a tray on his side. In the middle, we have a Waterford crystal decanter that I repurposed to hold mouthwash. On my side I have nothing other than a little antique-looking stand mirror (the kind which flips from regular to magnifying).
To my right, I have small open shelves where most people would normally have put a mirrored medicine cabinet. The only “functional” things on those shelves are facial cleanser, facial moisturizer and perfume (Fresh Hesperides Grapefruit is my summer fragrance). The rest are decorative large shells and a picture of my kids.
For my bank of drawers:
Top drawer has a Lucite tray with everyday makeup and everyday toiletries (hairbrush, toothpaste, etc). 99% of the time I just use this drawer.
Middle drawer is the “backup” drawer – contains a big lidded plastic box that has extra makeup that I pull from when I run out in the top drawer. This enables me not to have drawers full of half-used stuff. I stocked up on my favorite makeup (Laura Mercier) and I have enough to last for a few years. This drawer also contains some travel-size toiletries, though my actual travel toiletry bag is already packed and lives in my gym bag.
Bottom drawer: Empty. Seriously.
Then underneath my sink I just have backups of all the usual toiletries, toothpaste, mouthwash, body wash, etc plus hair dryer and curling iron (which are rarely used).
I am both minimalist and a stocker-upper. I like to get down to a few choices and then stock up on those choices.
But here is my tacky admission! The toilet is in its own little water closet. We stock up on TP from Sam’s and we just store it right there. Our rationale is that it’s only H/me ever in there anyway, and there’s never a TP emergency 
@nottelling if you ever want to get rid of that candle, I’ll take it. Those Jo Malone candles smell gorgeous!
Our bathroom counter is definitely more cluttered than the kitchen, but it’s not considered a public space so I’m fine with H’s and my toiletries living on the counter, like toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. Unlike the kitchen, there is a panoply of products that gets used at least daily, and I don’t want to be digging around in a drawer for them.
I don’t like medicine cabinets and we don’t have them. We have three drawers separating the two sinks, and H has the top drawer and I have the second and third.
I like to rotate shampoos and conditioners and I have at least three sets of each in the shower. The dogs have their own shampoo in the shower, as well, because H does not like it when the dogs smell like me, lol. He’s not thrilled about the dogs being bathed in the shower, but tolerates it. His dream is to have his own bathroom someday without all his wife’s “stuff” everywhere :D. That would be ok with me as long as he had to clean his own.
I love the medicine cabinets in our bath. We have a dual sink vanity with one above each sink. They are recessed into the wall so they just look like mirrors. There is a full size mirror on the inside door of the cabinet if you need to do any close work. The back wall of the cabinet is also a mirror. My facial products are lined up like little soldiers.
I enjoyed every minute of raising wild and cluttery boys. But I am now enjoying living in an empty nesting space. My TP is decoratively stacked in antique cupboards, per Kondo descriptions. And everything, in a drawer, possible to roll is now rolled. It is huge relief to me it is now feasible to keep private spaces as organized as the public spaces. Architect friend and I are inspiring each other to create beautiful, artistic vignettes in all storage areas. Perhaps we have too much time on our hands. 
It is difficult for me to judge how cluttery my house appears. There are collections on display in every room. However, when people drop by unexpectedly they frequently exclaim my house is always so very neat - sometimes rather accusingly. It is very full, but every object has a place it belongs. I do have a very few empty drawers and shelves here and there. There is an empty drawer in the kitchen at present, due to some recent reorganization of kitchen and dining room.
In a burst of organizing (and work avoidance) over the weekend, I went through some CDs, DVDs, and books. I have to amend my earlier statement about duplicates to say that we have 2 CDs of Zauberflöte, 2 CDs of Gounod’s St. Cecilia’s Mass, 2 copies of Interstellar (neither opened from the plastic wrap), and 2 copies of Peebles’s book Principles of Physical Cosmology. None of them are in the kitchen, though.
Also, 2 of a Beach Boys CD!
So the extra copies are now in your car so that you can donate them to a library, right?
I do have 2 large boxes of things to take to Goodwill tomorrow, but none of the duplicates except for the Interstellar DVD are in them, actually. With 2 cars, we can use the duplicate CDs simultaneously.
To say nothing of the 2 copies of Peebles’s book! (One for office and one for home–not to be read while driving!)
My bathroom was used in an ad by the contractor who did the work. Only problem was, he hadn’t finished the job (I think he fell off the wagon and left the job unfinished) and he didn’t get permission to use any photos of our bathroom. Imagine my surprise when I happened to pick up one of those “home improvement” magazines in a store while some gifts were being wrapped and saw my bathroom staring back at me!
I recalled later the reason that I have two CDs of Gounod’s St. Cecilia’s Mass, and it was not one for each car: They are different recordings, and I was disappointed in the Sanctus (Pleni Sunt Coeli) on the first one. The two copies of Zauberflöte are also different recordings, and probably for a somewhat similar reason. I will give one away as soon as I figure out which of each pair is the one I like.
The two Beach Boys CDs really are one for each car!