How to Organize a Laundry Room

We have been working on multiple organizational projects this past week… still trying to get boxes unpacked here in our new home, but we’ve made a lot of progress! This organizing challenge has been great for me because it has kept me focused on getting spaces fully organized and not just so-so in the meantime in order to get unpacked quickly. I’ve also been really thinking about what will work best for our family… and the laundry room project was a perfect example of that!

Our laundry “room” is really just a laundry closet. It is right off the garage entry, which is nice, because that open space makes it feel a little more roomy and less closet-y. I’m taking this photo from the family room.

Maybe a sketch would be clearer?

You’ll notice there are bi-fold doors on the laundry closet. I’ll let you guess how often those were open and blocking the bathroom door when we needed to go to the bathroom.

It was driving me crazy.

So, just like the pantry, we removed the doors and replaced them with curtains.

Now we have a lovely, unobstructed, bathroom door. It’s the simple things.

Two cup hooks on each side keep the curtain in place and provide a tie-back spot if needed. I used leftover ribbon to sew on the ties.

So, let’s look inside.

Luckily, there were already 2 cabinets above the washer and dryer when we moved in. They are more than enough storage for our laundry products.

Originally, I thought we’d remove one cabinet and hang a clothing bar like this, but:

• I’m not sure if I’d be able to reach the hanging bar without a stool
• We don’t hang dry much of our clothing
• The deck is, maybe, 10′ from this spot — so we could easily hang dry outside anyway.

So it really didn’t seem very practical to get rid of a cabinet just to have that hanging space.

However, we do hang machine dried clothing right as it comes out of the dryer. We needed an “intermediate” spot for several hanging items until we finish unloading the dryer and take them upstairs. A simple over-the-door coat hook on the inside of the garage door does the trick.

The cabinet on the right stores all of our laundry products. The fabric softener sheets are in easy reach on the lower shelf and some lesser-used items like fabric sprays and our iron are stored on the second and third shelves. Blue baskets hold small items like clothespins, tide pens and stain removers.

Since we had an additional empty cabinet it was time to make a change I’ve wanted to make for a while. Both at our old house, and this house, we’ve stored cleaning products under the kitchen sink. There are several things that bother me about that location:

• With the pipes, there really isn’t enough room.
• It’s a deep cabinet so things get pushed to the back.
• Even with a child safety mechanism, I worry about all those chemicals at kid height.

So this empty cabinet seemed like a perfect opportunity!

The bottom shelf holds a few regularly used cleaners like Clorox wipes, and Bona for our hardwood floors. All of the cleaning rags are stowed there too.

A blue bin on the middle shelf holds refill items like sponges and dusters. The plastic ice cream pails are some easy-to-grab buckets for cleaning.

The space between each shelf isn’t very high, so I also hung a shoe organizer for all of the bottled cleaners. I like to use shoe organizers to store items besides shoes.

I keep a book called “How to Clean Practically Anything” with my cleaning supplies for reference, as well as a toothbrush for scrubbing small spots and a pair of gloves.

In my pantry and hutch, items pull double duty. This plastic bin is doing the same. It holds the soapy water when I mop every week. month. season. year. #doesntaswiffercount? The rest of the time it holds hangers and fabric softener.

The detergent stays in place, on the dryer, so that we can pour it directly over the washer. The drips land right in the washer = no cleanup. Based on my mopping record, you may understand why that would be important to me 😉

A trash can hides right inside the curtain and a small rug keeps our feet warm while switching the laundry.

How did you do on your laundry rooms this week?

For the eighth and final week we’ll be talking about the dreaded mail and paper clutter. Erica will share some great ideas with you tomorrow, so make sure to check back!