This stately nickel-plated rack will put a towel bar (or, more likely, the shower-curtain rod) to shame. The unit is 12 by 30 by 7 inches, and the hooks slide along the bar, so you can adjust their spacing to efficiently accommodate items of different sizes.

What to Hang: Towels, robes, scrubbers, and clean clothes to change into after your shower. Use a basket up top to stow lotions and cleansers you use frequently.

Where to Mount: Put this rack high enough so your robes can hang without dragging (and at a height, usually six feet, at which no one will bump his head).

Mounting Tools: Pencil, tape measure, level, stud finder, drill, Phillips screwdriver, and eight No. 5 wood screws with anchors.

To Buy: Vagabond Vintage Euro rack, $184, Providence Antiques, www.providenceantiques.com.

More Options

Snug bathrooms need hooks as much as, if not more than, larger ones do. Here are a couple of solutions for smaller spaces.

Use a system with shallow hooks. The Elfa White Basket with Six Hooks ($14, www.containerstore.com) projects only 5 1/4 inches from the wall and holds toiletries in its small basket. It can even be mounted on the back of the bathroom door.

If you need just a few places to hang clothes and towels, mount a series of single hooks. Arrange them horizontally across a wall or, for bathrooms with tiled walls, horizontally or diagonally on the door.