How to Organize a Laundry Room

An organized laundry room makes everyone want to do the laundry. Well, maybe. Not many people like doing laundry but it is a necessity if we want to appear in public in nice clean clothes. An organized laundry room is a nice touch to any home and is very beneficial if you are trying to sell your home. This article will give you a few ideas on how to organize your laundry room.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Camera
• Home magazines
• Tools
• Supplies

1. Take pictures of your laundry room. Capture different angles to show how unorganized your laundry room is. Write down what is wrong with your laundry room. What do you not like about it. What would you like fixed or improved. Between the photos and the list of improvements, you want to have enough data before proceeding to step 2.

2. Compare the photos of your unorganized laundry room to an organized laundry room in a magazine or at a home improvement store. Compare your photos to as many in-store displays of organized laundry rooms or magazine displays as possible. Notice the things you like about an organized laundry room. Note the things you do not like. Collect as much information as you can to before proceeding to step 3.

3. Identify up to 3 things that you like about organized laundry rooms. Using these top 3 ideas, began to plan an upgrade to your laundry room. Determine if you can do the upgrades yourself or will you have to hire a contractor? Is there a cost for supplies and materials? Will the upgrade cause you to buy a new washer and dryer?

4. Some upgrades to a organized laundry room could be:
   - Laundry rooms have a washer, dryer and a sink. The sink is used to dispose of the water from the washer. An deep basin type of sink allows you to use the sink for laundry, washing the dog, filling big buckets of water, etc. It will serve more then one purpose.
   - Laundry rooms have shelves. You need shelves to place the detergents, supplies, other items. Do you have shelves on three of the four walls? If not, could you install shelves? A laundry room with sufficient shelves provides added room for the vacuums, iron/ironing board, cleaning supplies, etc. An easy to install shelve is the wire frame type. Cabinets or wood shelves can be difficult and time consuming.
   - Laundry rooms can have big tubs to put the dirty clothes. Rather then individual tubs in each persons room, put one large tub in the laundry room. This helps keep dirty clothes out of each persons room.
   - Install a clock and possibly a phone. If you have to spend a long period of time in the laundry room then installing a clock and a phone makes life easy for you.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not forgot to paint your organized laundry room. A well decorated laundry room creates a warm environment.
• Maximize the laundry room space as much as possible. Shelves, door hangers, portable shelving units are easy to install and convenient.
• Be prepared for jealous neighbors when they see how organized your laundry room is with these simple tips.

Resources

• Redesign Room
• Closets By Design
• IKEA
• Lillian Vernon

[lanijo]

on 7/17/2009 Thank you for this very organized article, I actually stacked my LG Washer/dryer. It gave me a lot more room as well. This deserves *****! : )