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Reclaiming the Laundry Room

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November 8, 2012 By Jackie

The pretty laundry storage I revealed yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg.  I made even more changes to reclaim the laundry room for–gasp–laundry! I am all for multi-purpose rooms, but this one was starting to have multiple personality disorder. It was not serving our family well.

Multi-function rooms works best when the functions of the room are related or similar. A good multi-function example is a living room and playroom in the same space where the goals are similar…to spend time together as a family. A bad multi-function example is a bedroom and office in the same space where the goals of the space are dramatically different…resting and working don’t go together.

I thought our large laundry room could serve as a laundry room, my craft room, and the kids craft room. Boy, was I wrong. My first error was in assessing the goals of those different functions. Laundry is a type of cleaning. Crafting is anything but clean. How could I miss that BIG difference?! Moreover, kid crafting is very different from my crafting. With so many different goals for the space, we did not end up with a multi-functional room, we ended up with a disfuntional room.

Thankfully, I was already in the process of moving my crafting space downstairs to my new studio. The boys are also back in school full time, so they were no longer using the space as a school room. The arts and crafts center was now just storage for weekend crafting. The one thing we still needed to do in the room was laundry, but the room had become a holding pen and dumping ground. It was so bad we were shutting the door when people came over (you can see the laundry room off our kitchen).

I started to crave a pretty laundry room. One I would be proud to leave the door open to. Instead of dreaming about it, I got to work. Over the course of one weekend, I overhauled our dysfunctional laundry/craft/school room. First order of business was to move out everything that did not belong. I finally moved all my craft stuff downstairs in my new studio clearing the shelf for pretty laundry storage. The boys craft stuff would stay, but it was completely cleaned up and reorganized. With all the clutter out of the way, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Another big change was for my sweet hubby.  He set a home goal at the start of 2012 to cut out his dry cleaning bill. He has been laundering and ironing his own shirts since. It is remarkable how well he stuck to this goal, despite the obstacles before him. The ironing board was stored in the coat closet. The iron was in the laundry room. His shirts were piled on top of the dryer.

Ironing Board Storage

I found a iron caddy at Home Depot and mounted it right next to the dryer.  Now the ironing board and iron are easily accessible.  I bought these large totes at Target to hold is shirts.  The one on the left holds the sweaters I Dryel at home.  The tote on the right is for his dress shirts.

I knew this change was successful when my hubby commented how much he liked the laundry room.  And, he has actually been putting his shirts in the tote and not in a messy pile on the dryer.

We are so fortunate to have a huge laundry room.  The room is 10ft x 10ft.  My goal was to maximize the function of this room without overloading it to the point of disfunction again.  I found a related purpose for this room and completely transformed the other side of the room to accommodate it.  I will be back tomorrow to share more.

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Pretty Glass Laundry Room Storage
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Cleaning Command Center

Comments

  1. Missy Greene says

    November 8, 2012 at 7:46 am

    This looks great! Where do you keep broom, mop, vacuum, etc.? Ours clutter up our laundry room.

    • Jackie says

      November 8, 2012 at 9:58 am

      Hi Missy! You are one step ahead of me :) Check back tomorrow to see where we keep all of our cleaning supplies and tools.

  2. Emily says

    November 27, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    Beautiful laundry room!!

    Just thought I’d mention that you might cut down even more on your hubby’s ironing time if you hang the shirts before ironing rather than storing them in a basket. My hubby has always ironed his own shirts and that’s one of his “tricks” for saving time since they don’t have the extra wrinkles that come from being piled in a bin. :)

    • Jackie says

      November 27, 2012 at 4:18 pm

      Emily, That is a fabulous idea. If only I could get my husband to hang them up. The bin was at least away for them not to be piled on the washer. I will have to tell him your husband’s trick and see if that helps. The shelf that our mop sits on actually has a hanging bar just for that purpose.

      • Emily says

        November 29, 2012 at 3:32 pm

        :) Yes, you do have to have someone hang them up. My hubby actually keeps his shirts to be ironed in his closet next to his ironed shirts (separated by his tie hanger) so I put the shirts to be hung on our bed and then one or the other of us is forced to either hang them up or put them on the floor so that we can sleep. :)

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