This is a great guest post by a new blogger!  Lauren helps us reach our New Year’s Resolution of Organizing with a wonderful post on getting your Laundry Room in shape.   Please welcome her to 3 Boys and a Dog and go visit her blog.   ~Kelli

The Laundry Room.

It is often the one of the most forgotten rooms in the house. If you have an actual separate room, you can just close the door and not worry about the chaos inside!

But wouldn’t it be fabulous if your Laundry Room was a place you enjoyed working? A spot that was so efficient that you were eager to get your laundry started each day?

Those things can be reality for you. Here are some simple solutions to making your Laundry Room a more inviting, more efficient space in which to work.

1.) Declutter.

We all know that getting rid of clutter makes a space easier to work in. If you’re stepping on clothes, if things are falling off of shelves, or if you can’t even get to the knobs on your machine…then it is time to spend an hour in there getting rid of some items.

Action Step: You know how it works: have a box to throw away, have a box to give away and have a box of items you’d like to keep.

Be brutal in your decision-making process, especially if your Laundry Room is ultra small like mine!

2.) Decide what items belong in your Laundry Room.

Many of us have to use our Laundry Rooms as spaces other than laundry. We don’t have a linen closet in our home, so I have to store all of our towels, sheets, and blankets in our Laundry Room.

Also, I store cleaning products, light bulbs, toilet paper and other bulk item purchases in this room.

Action Step: Brainstorm about the items that should belong in your Laundry Room. Make a list of the types of items that belong if you need to.

Then gather all of those like items together and determine which ones you use most.

Put the most-used items on the shelves where you can easily reach them.

Items you only use once every 3 months definitely don’t belong on the eye-level shelf.

Turn all of your labels facing out if you are a little particular like me. J

3.) Have a specific place for items that need to be ironed or dry-cleaned. I use my bottom shelf to store all clothing that needs to be ironed. Then on ironing day, I just pull out my stack and get to it.

For dry cleaning, I have a special bag in my husband’s closet. As soon as he takes off anything that needs to be dry-cleaned, it goes straight in the bag.

Action Step: Brainstorm about where you can store your to-be ironed and dry-cleaned items.

Do you have an extra laundry basket you could tuck in a closet? Do you have any extra shelf space?

Find your to-be ironed spot and make sure only those items go there (no stray socks, pocket change, etc).

4.) Have a specific place for stray socks.

Speaking of stray socks, it is inevitable that you have that one lone sock that comes out of the dryer. I have no idea why socks don’t stay with their matches, but they don’t.

Action Step: Find a small bin to store socks. Don’t use anything too large, or you won’t want to deal with matching them all.

As soon as you find a random sock while folding clothes, make sure to put it in the bin.

Go through the bin once a month and match all socks.

If you’ve got socks that stay in the bin longer than a month, find them a new home: a cleaning rag, the trash, etc.

5.) Store your Laundry Room Supplies in one container. I have several essential supplies that must stay in my Laundry Room: Scissors, a Sharpie, a pen, a toothbrush (for stain removal) and a tape measure to name a few. Everyone in my family knows that these items are to stay in the Laundry Room. I’m not thrilled when I find they’ve walked to another room in the house. Keeping them in one container ensures you know where they are when you need them.

Action Step: Decide which items are essential to your daily laundry routine.

Find a cute little container to store them in.

Always put them back in the container after you finish using them!

6.) Have a bulletin board in your Laundry Room. I have a bulletin board for several reasons. I occasionally need some encouragement to do our never-ending laundry, hence the pictures of my little people! Mostly I have it to keep papers and small items that I don’t want to get lost: a tag I need to keep, any money I find (Finders Keepers…), receipts.

Action Step: If you’re a crafty soul, you can certainly make yours to suit your taste! If not, you can find the perfect one to match your décor.

Regardless of which you choose, this is a designated spot to put those small miscellaneous items that might otherwise be lost.

This is a ‘pretty’ part of the room, but also a vital part to organization.

These are simple steps to improve your Laundry Routine. Even implementing only one or two steps will greatly enhance your productivity!

If you have older children or a spouse who helps with laundry, make sure you go through the steps you’ve taken to make your Laundry Room more efficient. You don’t want them to sabotage your hard work because they don’t know your new system!

So choose the solution that would help you the most and get moving! You’re going to love your results!

Lauren Hill is the mama behind Mama’s Laundry Talk. Strangely enough, she loves all things laundry and loves to help others make their Laundry Lives easier. She is proud to be a wife, mama to 3 fantastic little people and a Child of God.

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