SNEAKY STORAGE: Above doorway and above message center

Disclaimer: I cannot take credit for this idea.  I'm not sure who originally came up with the brilliant thought, but I saw it in one of those gorgeous organization booklets that I once uncharacteristically succumbed to at the grocery store checkout.  Here's a photo of the booklet I used, to give full credit to Martha Stewart and her minions:

Anyway, within this lovely volume, I found this grand idea, which we adapted to our home and our needs.  Here's how we did it:

BATHROOM:

Now we have a spot to store extra rolls of toilet paper, wash cloths and soap, since our bathroom has only a pedestal sink and no storage space (big bathroom redo post coming soon so you'll see what we're dealing with).

Since I am not tall enough to reach this shelf, here's how I access this stored cache:

See the yellowish rod with a red handle hanging on the side of the door?  Here's what it's for:

Now I don't have to do a huge leap every time I need to refill the toilet paper or soap.  I consider this very high design in my house, since we are not always the most perfectly organized.

Here's how we adapted the idea for our kitchen message center:

The message center itself is just a combination of a magnet board from IKEA (left side), a cork board we cut out of a cork board from a thrift shop (upper right) and chalkboard paint wall (lower right). We added the trim around the whole thing to finish it off, and added the extra shelf on top, which holds some pictures, Gavin's magnet letters and numbers for the fridge, and a box with the extra chalk and eraser.  (I think the message center idea also came from that same booklet.)

My husband built these shelves to size and I painted them white.  They are each just 4 pieces of wood nailed together: a rectangle wider shelf part on top attached to a smaller rectangle lower back part and two triangular pieces on the edges for extra shelf support.  He then installed the shelf directly to the wall.

Every little bit of storage helps, right?  Thanks, Martha!