The laundry room is one of those functional rooms in a home that can still benefit from some thoughtful storage solutions. Beyond cleaning your clothes, the laundry room often plays a role in taking care of other messy problems, like washing off the dog, cleaning up dirty tools, spraying off toys and sports equipment just to make a few.
If you’ve been struggling with a disorganized or overtaxed laundry room, you might want to consider some of the following organizational ideas to get it back in order and keep it organized.
Hanging Collapsible Mesh Bins
Mesh storage bins are incredibly versatile and lightweight enough that you can hang them from pretty much anything. They are a great way to add a little extra storage for things like dryer sheets, scent boosting granules, and laundry detergent pods.
Stackable Wire Baskets
Wire baskets are an increasingly popular way to organize lightweight and loose items. They are available in a variety of forms, though a wheeled frame with slidable or stackable wire baskets tends to play best in the laundry room. This is a great way to organize clothing items like socks and underpants or to keep loose laundry items like dryer sheets and scent boosters ready at hand.
Adding Hanging Closet Poles
Most quality clothing items do best when they are hung on hangers. Especially those that need ironing. Some simple closet pole caps and an inexpensive closet pole or two added to the corners or a sidewall in the laundry room lets you hang everything that needs to be hung without having to choose which items are getting folded with creases.
Install Pull Down Closet Poles
Pull-down closet poles are another great way to add hanging space when you need it, yet make them virtually vanish up to the ceiling when you don’t. These poles can be spring-loaded or crank down with an easy-to-use mechanism.
A Folding Ironing Board
Most dress shirts and slacks look best when they are properly ironed. Though collapsible ironing boards tend to take up a lot of space and have a knack for jamming up at the worst possible time. A folding ironing board can be installed with a robust piano-style hinge to fold down perfectly flat when you need it, then fold it back flush with the wall when you don’t.
Behind The Door Mesh Pockets
Mesh pockets can also be installed into a behind-the-door hanging system. You see this in a lot of college dorm rooms and boats as a way to put up shoes. Though they can just as easily be used for things like 12 to 16-ounce bottles of laundry detergent, dryer sheets, scent boosting granules, and other small laundry items.
Pull-Down Shelves
The inventory in a laundry room is always changing. Especially if you are buying detergent, dryer sheets, and scent boosters in bulk. Installing pull-down shelves lets you stash away heavy laundry items until you need them to refill the smaller vessels.
Stackable Tote Bins For Bulk Laundry Supplies
Stackable tote bins are another great way to store bulk laundry supplies. Models with reinforced corners can take a lot of weight. Being able to keep them with one on top of the other reduces the footprint of floor space, while still being able to hold what you need in reserve.
Laundry Detergent Dispensers
Laundry detergent dispensers are a great way to portion out exact amounts. They are a great option if you have a communal laundry room shared by other tenants or you happen to have adult children living with you at home.
Pegboard Organization Systems
Pegboard and hooks have evolved into a very versatile modern-day organization solution. While they can still hold onto grandpa’s hand tools, they are also a great way to organize medium-to-light weight laundry items. Especially things that hang well from hooks.
Shelf Dividers
Shelf dividers are a great way to keep items from intermingling. Especially if different people in the house have different detergent preferences or you have some clothing items that need special cleaning products. It also helps to keep cords from things like iron from getting tangled up with other laundry items.
Drawer Dividers
Drawer dividers are another great way to keep your laundry room drawers from descending into junk drawers. Dividers help keep lightweight, loose items from getting scrambled together while also giving everything its own place.
Cubbies For Each Person
The same cubbies you may have had in preschool and kindergarten have evolved into fully functional forms of personal storage. You can outfit each cubby with its own hanging rod and perhaps some adjustable shelves. This way you can put up people’s laundered items where they can get them for themselves, without having to lug the laundry around the house from room to room. It’s a great way to encourage a teenager to put away their own clothes.
Mesh Laundry Net Bags In Hampers
Let’s face it, a laundry hamper is an annoying thing to lug with you down to the laundry room. By placing mesh bags in the hamper or hampers throughout your home, you can simply pull the drawstring up and take the dirty laundry with you like Santa carrying a sack of toys over your shoulder.
Install A Laundry Chute
Laundry chutes are enjoying a vigorous renaissance as a convenient way to deliver dirty clothes to the laundry room in an instant. The laundry typically drops down into a large mesh bag that can hold a load or three at a time. Though this might be the sort of thing you want to have a contractor install for you.
Hang A Lint Bin On The Wall
The struggle against the evils of dryer lint is all too real. Hanging a simple lint big from the wall lets you give it a place, without having a garbage can eating up precious square footage on the laundry room floor.
Removable Labels For Shelves & Cupboards
If your laundry room gets used by several different people in the course of a single week, then you really should think about investing in a labeling system. This ensures that everything has a place and is put back in its proper place every time. It’s especially handy if you have a teenager or a spouse who just puts things away ad hoc.
Hang An Indoor Wash Line
This is actually an old idea that is coming back around again. In the olden days before clothes dryers, people simply hung their wet laundry in the basement or a lesser-used room in the winter. Today hanging a wash line in your laundry room can give you additional space to hand delicates like nylons and special fabric sundries that do better air drying.
Use A Dryer Sheet Dispenser
How many times have you been wrestling with a load of laundry getting it from the washing machine to the dryer only to find yourself needing two hands for something as simple as a dryer sheet? A dryer sheet dispenser has enough weight to it that you can grab a single sheet with one hand and the dispenser itself stays in place. You can find them in a lot of discount department stores, or you might be able to simply repurpose a baby wipes dispenser.
Freestanding Shelves For Folded Clothing & Linen
A lot of laundry rooms are near a bathroom. This is just a matter of plumbing logistics. Though it also makes a large laundry room a great place to store your towels washcloths and other folded clothing items like an oversized linen closet. This is great for large families who ultimately go through a lot of towels in the course of a single week.
Use A Three-Bag Hamper System
Sorting colors, white and darks is one of the more tedious things about doing laundry. To the point that some people will merely chuck everything into the washer at one time and hope for the best. A three-basket hamper system lets everyone in the family separate their laundry before it even finds its way to the laundry room. This saves time and spares you the embarrassment of having colors bleed into whites.
