Organization Tips to Make You (Kinda) Love Laundry Day
If ever there was a household chore that perturbs me beyond words, it’s doing the laundry. It is dreadfully boring and repetitive. Wash Day, as some call it, is a task that takes FOR-ever and seems to imprison me in my own home until I complete it.
I do not, and have never had a proper laundry room. Perhaps that explains my contempt for the whole process. There are indeed plans to build one. But when you live in a petit palais, finding contractors for small-scale jobs is shockingly difficult. While we grapple with that issue in the background, I’ve invited a couple of blogging buddies to step forward to share their tips for laundry room organization. Welcome to week 10 of the Whole House Organization Challenge.
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Small Laundry Room Organization Tips
Whether you do laundry in a spacious, dedicated room, a closet, or an unfinished portion of your basement (like me), a process is needed to get and keep your laundry room in order. The process below was cited in the kick-off post of this challenge. It is the method I use to organize every space of my home.
Choose the area to be organized
Completely empty the space and give it a good scrub down.
Purge the unnecessary items. (Is it broken, irreparable, too small, shabby?) Be ruthless.
Devise a system for organizing your items. Click here to download my handy organization worksheet.
Return your items to their proper place
Organize Your Dirty Laundry Ahead of Time
Despite having to do laundry in a dungeon, organizing dirty laundry ahead of time (in other words, as we make the clothes dirty) helps a ton. I make it my business to never be in my laundry room any longer than I have to. To do that, I use, not simply a laundry basket, but a laundry sorter. Sorting dirty clothes according to color, when adding them to hamper, eliminates having to sort them all at once later.
Furthermore, pre-sorting garments makes it easier to do at least one load of laundry each day. Simply scoop up a handful of already sorted clothing and toss them in the wash each morning. By the time the weekend arrives, there will be no need to spend an entire day doing the laundry. SA-weet!
Source | Crystal from The Holiday Collective has a great tip for laundry day blues: Self-Serve Laundry
Customize Your Laundry Area for the Best Function
Very rarely will a home’s original layout contain everything you need for way your life functions. That’s where customization comes in. To create an organized laundry room, shelves may need to be added. Structures might need to be built to your specifications.
Both Crystal (The Holliday Collective) and Erin (Live Pretty on a Penny) faced that very dilemma when they set out to organize their laundry rooms. Notice the raw spaces that both started out with below.
Source: Erin Live Pretty on a Penny | Laundry Room BEFORE
Source: Crystal, The Holliday Collective | Laundry Room BEFORE
Most people I know have laundry rooms this size. As in the case with Crystal and Erin, there was barely any work or walking space, and storage was nonexistent. But notice how each of these ladies devised and executed their plan for a better functioning laundry room.
Source: Erin, Live Pretty on a Penny | Laundry Room AFTER
Source: Crystal, The Holliday Collective | Laundry Room AFTER
Make it Pretty
I don’t care what anyone says, pretty environments make hard work easier to bear. Naturally, no organization project would really be complete if this last tip was omitted. Both ladies used baskets, greenery and even fresh flowers to bright up their spaces. Baskets, decanters and handsome canisters were used to hold clothes pins, detergents and other necessities.
Yes, having a pre-laundry plan, a custom laundry room plan and a “make it pretty” plan will go a long way in making doing the laundry more worthwhile.
