We don't have a towel rack in our bathroom, so we needed something that could hang a few bath-sized towels..And this works, but just barely. It needs to be about 5 inches wider and 4 inches taller to be perfect. If you have large towels, or a bath sheet, you definitely won't like it. And when you add three towels, space gets a bit tight - I'm not sure if you'd get enough air circulating in there to really dry the towels. And as for the shelf - it's pretty useless because the front towel is about a 1/2 inch off the ground. It still works perfectly for what we need (hang two towels), and the price is good, but just be aware of the sizing. (That towel in the picture must be a towel from about the 1980's - remember how small they used to be??)