A complete disaster. If yours isn’t, I’m not sure we can be friends anymore.
This, despite the fact that I painted a completely adorable red bench from D.I. a beautiful bright red to give the kids a place to remove their shoes. Despite the great coat rack from IKEA for the school backpacks. Despite the new front loading washer and dryer which take up so little space it’s practically criminal. Despite the white board on the wall from Costco that organizes my children’s schedules.
A mess.
Send help, I’m being swallowed by breeding laundry.
— The new front loading washer and dryer are from Frigidaire. I’ve been participating in a campaign with them since the beginning of the year. I love the washer and dryer, but perhaps they could have sent someone WITH the appliances to do the actual work.
Allison
Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!
Ugh, I know the feeling. The chaos of life always seems to overwhelm that room for us too, despite having some organizing tools in there.
By the way, did you see this laundry room makeover? The layout reminded me a lot of yours.
http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-beachy-laundry-room-reveal.html
I’m always working on it, it’s a continuous effort in my life.
Her laundry room is fabulous, way more organized than mine!
That’s just how the laundry room feels some days. Especially when you have such an awesome life and travel ALL the time! lol
I know what your laundry room looks like, and it’s organized.
I actually caught up with my laundry for the first time in months last week. It lasted all of one day. I don’t know how it happens!! Literally overnight you can get behind again. It’s one of life’s cruel jokes. :-)
It IS a cruel joke! I’m ahead, then behind. Relentless.
Love the washer and dryer, I think they are like art! If you could somehow achieve this look http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/organizing/home-office/makeover-home-office-00000000040873/page2.html you have a lot of wall space that could be used, maybe if you took down the white cabinets above and did new wall spacing with the shelves in the above article. Just thinking outloud!!!! I have to say it again though, love the machines!
You know, open shelving is actually an AWESOME idea. I may have to pass this one on to Viktor.
Thank you!
Thank heavens for bloggers like you! My laundry room looks very similar, minus the fancy machines, so I’m glad there are some other real people out there in blog land! We could be friends for sure and you’re welcome in my laundry room any day.
Nancy, thank heavens. I mean, really, let’s be honest. It’s clean about once a month, but other than that it’s terrible. Let’s be friends.
If your home is ever “burgled” and only the washer and dryer are missing…I didn’t do it!
Libby, I won’t tell a soul. Be sure to take the extra hoses in back, you’ll need them.
My laundry room’s beautiful. And I’m a “messie”. W/ no set schedule & a busy life.
So, I’m not bragging. Just celebrating my victory over my laundry rm! My method: 1 foldable IKEA laundry hamper ($2each, maybe?) each for following categories: Bob’s scrubs (work uniforms), Bob’s shirts, Bob’s underwear/socks/our towels&sheets (in one hamper), Bob’s pants, Bob’s delicates (like sweaters/etc.), my dirty laundry, Bob’s clean laundry, my clean laundry, our dry cleaning. Categories could obviously be customized (one hamper for each kid, etc.) Reasons: 1.) my boyfriend Bob has wayyy more laundry than me (so I only need one basket and he needs tons!) 2.) our lives are busy, so if we spontaneously want to wear a specific pair of pants that are in the dirty laundry, we can quickly locate them 3.) sooo much easier to put the laundry away when we’re putting only one category away at one time 4.) much easier to toss all of one category in machine quickly on one wash setting and then move on w/ life 5.) if we don’t have time to put clean clothes away from dryer (which happens), but need to use the dryer, they go in the “clean clothes” hamper… better they sit there for weeks than on the floor or machine for wks. 6.) The baskets alternate white & blue to blend in w/ t/ wall, so that it doesn’t look cluttery, but so that Bob associates the color of his baskets w/ which laundry goes in which hamper and I ALWAYS keep the basket categories in the same place, so that it becomes habit. Using a bright, happy scheme (you could have red & purple hampers, maybe, to go w/ t/ green?) in the laundry room is important since the laundry rm tends to be depressing (but if I had kids, each kid would get their own color hamper) 7.) I label all of them on the inside of each hamper so the labels are easy to see but not messy-looking 8.) When we have a LOT of laundry, it doesn’t LOOK like a lot (whereas if it were piled on floor/counter, it’d look like tons!).
Your laundry rm can easily fit a row of hampers against the wall, where the piles are currently.
Two big laundry sheets boxes sit on ledge of dryer so they’re within easy reach, (lots b/c that way I only replace them once every couple yrs) but I covered the boxes in pretty paper, so it looks cute and not messy.
Laundry detergent and other bottles: goes in cabinets so as not to be seen (looks so cluttery on open shelves). I screwed in one of those expandable clothes line things and hang our single socks from it w/ clothes pins so as to be easily visible/accessible/out of the way. (They almost look like art up there.) But you have a big magnetic surface on your machine, so each single sock could be clipped there, using magnetic clips. When they’re up there more than 2 months, they get tossed into the “dusting cloths” bin. I keep safety pins attached to the washing machine w/ a magnet hook b/c I safety pin sock pairs together b/4 tossing into the hamper. Our laundry room is attached to a storage closet where t/ heater is. In that room, I nailed up hooks for both our large ironing board and our small ironing board, so that they’re not visible but are still immediately accessible. You could hide yours in that nook in the back. On the back of the door is a $5 purse organizer where I keep our often-used backpacks/travel pillows/rain ponchos. Our cabinets have our seldom-used files (like previous years’ taxes and our tenants’ leases) that need to be accessible… but could easily be used for shoes. The 4 drawers of the cabinets hold our electronics, using drawer organizers: one drawer for camera/ipod stuff (batteries, chargers, cords, headphones, etc.) each in their own section of the organizer and each section is labeled. One drawer for seldom-used cords—and each section of organizer is labeled w/ t/ type of cords that go there. One drawer for weird stuff like misc. wallets, misc. sunglasses, coins, etc. We keep the small garbage can underneath the sink so you don’t see it, and I always put 5-ish garbage bags at the bottom of the garbage, so that when I change the garbage, I can immediately change the bag, too. I also put up a laundry line for wet clothes that need to be air-dried, so they’re not taking up floor space w/ a clothing rack. I use the Downy Ball b/c I used to try to remember to put the softener in at the right time and never did! I just keep the Downy Ball and the laundry cap in the washing machine at all times. I keep hangers in the laundry room, so that I can immediately put clean clothing on hangers. I check the pockets of clothing b/4 it even enters t/ laundry rm to try to keep misc. coins/papers/etc. out of the room. But I still have a small cloth pouch attached to washing machine w/ magnet for coins and a magnetic clip for misc. papers. You could easily put a shoe-organizing bag w/ clear pockets on the back of the door or even several nailed to the walls, too, to be labeled and hold whatever. I keep a broom, surface cleaner, paper towels, etc. in the room, so that I can quickly/easily clean on-the-spot.
You could easily also use over-the-door cabinet door organizers for little misc. categories. I would get rid of the pretty red bench and find a new room for it. I feel like it takes up much-needed breathing/organizing space. Maybe replace it with a shoe-organizer.
Bottom Line: I stopped thinking that we were going to be better at doing laundry and cleaning the laundry rm and accepted that there would be times when we’ve have a LOT of laundry and that since we’d always have misc stuff in the room (like coins/pens), everything should have a home. Better to have it in categorized hampers/drawers/cabinets than on the floor/washer/counter!
Sounds like you’re totally on top of it, way to go!