Organizing Places You Use the Most. (Hey there, laundry room.)

Every woman I know has one domestic task that she'd readily give up if she magically got a free pass for life.  (Try this sometime.  Ask your friends to share their least favorite chore, and they'll spit out an answer so quickly it's as if they've been waiting their entire adult lives for someone to have posed the question.)

What would I give up?  They'll respond, eyes alight with even the flicker of such a far-fetched idea becoming reality.  Oh, cooking dinner, hands down!

Or, depending on the person, they'd swear off cleaning bathrooms, or ironing, or doing laundry.  Especially doing laundry, it seems.  Laundry, when loathed, is loathed with the intensity of a thousand burning suns.

Now, no haters for this admission, but I've never minded doing laundry.  (I mind other lesser tasks instead, like the entire bath process for my children.  It's a wonder they're ever clean.)  But laundry, I can handle.

Part of my peace with laundry is simply that I'm blessed to have a house with a laundry room, rather than lugging clothes to a laundromat.  It's a luxury I sometimes forget I even have, but it's huge.  On top of that, I've organized this space so it's functional and organized, which leads me a few tips for you today.

1) Look for secret storage.  Most laundry rooms aren't large. (I can touch opposite walls with my extended hands when I stand in my laundry room, and trust me, I don't have a significant wingspan.)  Given this, I'm always on the lookout for better places to store products.  Hanging bottles instead of cluttering shelves with them has worked wonders for me.


2) Add storage where you can.  Is there room for more storage in your laundry room?  There might be.  Think about creating high shelving for off-season items or squeezing in a small shelf directly above the dryer.  I noticed an empty space last year, mounted this wire shelf, stood back, admired my work, and wondered, "Shelf, where have you been my whole life?"  It's that nice.

3) Toss the laundry cap in with the wash.  Are you tired of gunky, sticky laundry caps?  Simply measure the correct amount of detergent and drop the entire cap into the washing machine with your clothes.  Pull out the clean cap when you transfer the clothes to the dryer, and voila, no more gunk.


4) Remember who you're serving.  This might sound obvious.  Of course you're serving your family as you're painstakingly turning EVERY. SINGLE. PIECE. of their clothing right-side-out, or plucking Kleenex from their pockets, or realizing that your child goes through an ungodly amount of daily wardrobe changes.

This is the nature of service.  We give of ourselves -- our time, our energy, our focus -- to care the ones we love.  In this vein, I've hung a picture of those little imps who generate the most laundry directly across from the washer and dryer.  Just take a look at them.

 

Yeah, I'll serve those little ones, and this small visual reminder is helpful when I'm tempted to throw in the towel.  (Yes, the pun is entirely intended... and entirely awful, as puns tend to be.)

If you have any tips for making laundry an easier process, feel free to share!


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2 comments

  1. Christy CruzJanuary 29, 2014

    I too, like doing the laundry! Talk about instant gratification! One thing I have done to make it easier was to get the Bounce Bar. It sticks to the inside of the dryer. No more remembering to add fabric softener, or toss in a dryer sheet. And no dryer sheets to pick up! The other thing I did when my kids, now 13 and 19, were small was to divide their dirty socks into inexpensive lingerie bags. That way the girl's socks were in her bag and the boy had his. I never folded them, just put the bag back in the dresser.

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  2. Great tips, Christy! I especially like the idea of corralling socks into a laundry bag. I envision that making the pairing process easier!

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