5 tips for getting the most function and storage for organizing a small laundry room.
Hi there! I’m Ashley from Cherished Bliss and I’m so excited to be over here with Lauren today while she’s hopefully getting some much needed rest!
Just a little about me…. I’m married to an amazing man with whom I have 3 adorable kids. We recently moved back to Wisconsin, started homeschooling our kids and bought an old historical home built in 1865. It’s a crazy life we live but we wouldn’t trade it for anything… although we would definitely take a break from it, say… if someone gave us an all expenses paid vacation ;)!
As I said, we just moved back to Wisconsin, but before that we lived in Utah where we had a pretty small laundry room.
Currently, we have a basement space that desperately needs to be completely redone to create a functional space… but let’s talk about organizing small laundry rooms because that’s way more fun than thinking about completely gutting a space and starting from scratch (especially when you’re knee deep in renovations)!
I personally think a large percentage of people have small laundry rooms or they’re lacking functionality.
For some reason the laundry room easily gets forgotten. Sure you might slap a coat of paint on there, but let’s talk about how to make a small space functional with storage! Even if you have a huge space, these tips will help you stay organized! Here’s a look at what this space looked like before… which is just a plain jane builder grade laundry room.
Add Storage
Storage is key.
Let’s face it… women everywhere crave storage in every single room of the house. It’s how we function! As you can see from the before picture, we had one very small cabinet. It was hardly big enough for anything except collecting junk. And that’s exactly what it did.
The very first thing I wanted to do was add cabinets. Are you are lacking floor space? …. go vertical! Adding these two large cabinets allowed me to not only store typical laundry room items, but things like beach towels that take up perfectly good linen closet space, but only get used for a short period of time.
Add a Shelf
Adding an open shelf allows you to keep as much hidden space as possible by storing your everyday items, like laundry detergent, in plain sight.
You definitely don’t have to store ugly containers either. Grab yourself a cute little glass jar to keep pods or powder in. If you prefer liquid I’ve seen tons of DIY dispensers on Pinterest!
You can get the Shelf Tutorial here. I also threw a couple baskets on the shelf where I toss all the socks who’ve lost their long lost love! Please don’t tell me I’m the only person with a pile lonely guys desperately searching for their other half!!
Sort Your Dirty Laundry
Nobody loves a pile of dirty laundry… in fact I don’t think anybody loves a pile of clean laundry. You know what kind of laundry I like? The kind that puts itself away!
But really, sorting laundry makes a huge difference versus piling it all in one basket. When you sort it ahead of time, you can just move it straight to the washer without dumping all the other clothes on the floor. Now I’m starting to wonder if all these problems are just my problems, haha!
Create a Place to Hang Clothes
Being able to hang clothes straight out of the dryer, or perhaps hang dry clothes is a big plus. Sometimes you just need to get something out of the dryer so it doesn’t wrinkle, but you know you’re not going to fold all those other clothes. It might not seem unimportant, but having a place to hang things seriously helped me keep my laundry room floor cleaner, I promise!
Find Your Laundry Room Hotspot
If you aren’t familiar with the term “hotspot” it’s simply a place in a certain room where things have a tendency to pile up. Find that space and give it a new job. For me it was the little counter next to our dryer… things just got piled up there all time. If somebody didn’t know what to do with something I think they thought I wouldn’t notice it there… cause who goes in the laundry room right? Hah!!
In order to keep that clutter at bay I decided to use up that space. I added a cute little basket where we put our delicate items. I’m not a big fan of delicates, but we do have a few… so by giving that its own space I eliminated the ability for people to just pile things up in that particular spot. In all fairness though, I should warn you… this so called “hotspot” will likely make its way to a new spot in your home. 😉
I hope these few little tips left you inspired to organize your laundry room… and maybe laugh a little. I love to laugh, but I love to laugh with others even more… even if it’s virtually!
For more DIY Projects and Decorating Ideas come visit me at Cherished Bliss, subscribe to get my posts straight to your inbox or follow me on Instagram where you can watch all the craziness of fixing up a house that’s more than 150 years old!
A HUGE thank you to Lauren for having me over today! It was great getting to meet y’all!!
Have a beautiful day,
-Ashley
