A typical laundry room tends to be one of those areas that are easily ignored. You drop a load off in the washer, pull one out of the dryer and scurry off with a warm laundry basket ready to be folded. Week after week this ritual is repeated, often will little attention paid to the state of the laundry room itself.
That is until that one fateful day where you walk in with a hamper bursting at the seams, to find a room that has descended into absolute chaos!
In a moment like this, you probably find yourself asking “How do I declutter my laundry room? And how do I keep my laundry room organized?”
Well, right off the bat, the first step is to roll up your sleeves and get out everything that shouldn’t be there. You know what I’m talking about. This is that stray spent dryer sheet that was forgotten on the floor like the tomb of an unknown soldier, and that old jug of laundry detergent with three little drizzles left in it that you don’t want to go to waste.
With all the useless detritus removed and a load spinning in the machine, you will have the time to spare to try one or more of the following things to get your laundry room organized and keep it organized.
Behind The Door Storage
The space behind a laundry room’s door is one of the most wasted spaces in any household. Over the door and behind the door hanger can be a great way to store a wide range of lightweight laundry items. This could be things like scent boosters, dryer sheets, small bottles of specialty detergent, spot stain removers, and more.
Each pouch gives each item its own place, while also making it easy to find what you need at a moment’s notice. It also encourages family members to put everything back in its proper place when they are done doing their own laundry.
Keep An Inventory White Board
Laundry rooms can be home to a lot of different items. Different types of detergents for different color clothes and different temperatures are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to essential laundry supplies. Spot stain removers, scent boosters, dryer sheets, and more. It can be staggering to keep track of them all. Especially when you have multiple people washing their own loads of laundry. Running out can be a clothes cleaning catastrophe.
Yet a simple whiteboard hung unassumingly on a wall with a checkmark for “Low” and a box for “Out” will let you know what you need to buy more of something. It also spares you the constant investigation for who used up the last of something and the inevitable family blame game that ensues.
Shelf Dividers & Adjustable Shelves
Shelf space is often at a premium in a laundry room. Yet it can also be asked to hold a lot of assorted items. Using adjustable shelves helps you a custom set up your shelves to optimize the available vertical space. Then you can use shelf dividers to help maximize the horizontal organization.
Even if your existing shelves and laundry room cabinets have static shelves, you can still add shelves and adjustable racks using aftermarket hardware brackets. This could even be something as pre-drilled strips of 1” X 2” lumber fitted with dowel pegs to give added shelves extra support.
Under Shelf Basket Systems
Let’s say that you are stuck with static shelves as they are, or any sort of vertically adjustable shelves would only yield a paltry few extra inches of narrow storage space. Rather than being vexed by the wasted vertical storage potential, you might want to consider installing some simple sliding wire baskets.
These baskets can be installed onto sliding rails that let them move just like lightweight drawers. You then attach the sliding rails to the underside of your static shelves. This lets you use the wire baskets for a staggering array of lightweight items like dryer sheets and laundry scent boosters, which frees up other storage areas throughout the laundry room.
Personalized Hampers & Baskets
One of the true joys of life is when you finally get your kids to take responsibility for doing their own laundry. One of the best ways to encourage this process and keep them organized is to give them their own laundry baskets and hampers.
This might be something as simple as a mesh bag that is hung or suspended in each of their rooms. They can then haul their own dirty laundry to their room and bring it back for folding, without leaving any random piles in the laundry room itself.
Install Hanging Rods
When you sit down and think about it, a lot of clothes either need to be hung to air dry, or they need to hang while you are waiting to iron them. Installing a basic hanger rod that is secured in place and keeping a few dedicated utility hangers on it will give you a perfect place to let clothes hang up and out of the way.
A Folding Ironing Board
Let’s face it, collapsible ironing boards can be a real pain to collapse down. Ideally, you want to leave them in place for use after use, but they would take up to much precious floor space. The easier answer here is a folding ironing board.
It can be secured to a wall via a heavy-duty hinge. When you want to use it, the board folds down neatly and holds firmly in place. When you are done it bends back up toward the ceiling to lock seamlessly in place.
Peg Hooks For Other Cleaning Tools
Most families force their laundry room to pull double duty as a storage area for brooms, mops, and other cleaning supplies. These things can take up an awful lot of space and can clutter up your laundry room, even though they have nothing to do with getting clothes clean.
Simple peg hook systems have evolved in recent years beyond the sort of thing you used to see in your grandfather’s workshop. They are tougher and have more load-bearing capacity. At the same time, there are a plethora of innovative attachments, including clips to hold mops, brooms, and other hand tools up and out of the way.
