Organizing The Laundry Room
It is important that we have the perfect design for our laundry room that will provide us with the necessary space to work and to store all of our laundry essentials. One thing that will help to accomplish this is to have the right tools and space that is needed to keep it well organized.
Too many of us will have clothes and other items strewn across the room because they do not have a set area to be placed in. The best way to organize the laundry room is to have the necessary storage space. This includes building shelves and cabinets.
Shelving
Shelves are some of the most useful especially when you have a smaller laundry room area in your home or apartment. The best place to install these shelves is above the washer and dryer where everything is easy to reach. You can make or buy one long shelf or you can purchase a few side shelves that will go on the wall beside the machines. Wood shelving is the best – but you can also use metal shelving. When using metal shelving make sure that you lay down padded shelf liners that will keep things from falling through the cracks.
Cabinets
If at all possible you should have cabinets and drawers installed into your laundry room. These give you more space then shelves and allow you to keep things hidden when they are not being used. Pull out cabinets work great and they are often large enough to fit everything you need. They work best when they are built into a work space island with counter tops that allow you to fold your clothes without having to bring them into the another room.
If you do not have the space for an island than try to purchase a small chest with drawers that will sit on the opposite wall from the machines. You can purchase these for less then $200 and have them match the design of your laundry room. If you want to save money and give yourself a fun project than you can find a cabinet or chest from a garage sale or flea market and fix it up yourself.
Storage Bins
You need a place to put your detergent and iron – but you also need a place where you can put all of your dirty clothes. In this case shelves and cabinets are not going to be much help. If you wash clothes the right way than you separate your whites from your colors. Find bins and hampers that will handle all of the clothes and fit neatly inside of your laundry room. One of the best types to use are the mesh hampers.
These allow you to carry the bag to each room and pick up all the dirty clothes without any problems. When you bring it back to the laundry room you can set it inside of the rack that will keep the bag open for you. These racks hold two or three different mesh bags at one time allowing you to store the different colors in separate areas without taking up a great deal of space in your laundry room. These great space savers might not be pretty – but they are useful and affordable.
Organizing Tips
It is important to have the right storage space for your laundry room – but it will not do you any good if you do not know how to utilize that space appropriately. The first thing that you want to do is to arrange the various products that you use in the order you use them. Your detergent and fabric softener are what you will use most so they should be in an area that is closest to you. Try to place them directly over the machine they are used in or on a shelf next to them.
Any small supplies that you have should be placed in a special box or bin and kept on a shelf or inside of a cabinet. You should have a bin for sewing supplies, stain removers, and something for all those spare socks.
Try to install a drying rack onto one of the walls for any items that cannot be put in the dryer. You can also purchase a drying rack that will break down easily and store next to the machines when not being used.