Today we have a fun project; my friend Suzanne just remolded her laundry room. She’s feeling overwhelmed about how to reorganize the laundry room and doesn’t know where to start. Her new space is quite large compared to the smaller laundry room she had before. We’re going to do a before and after and show you how we made these organizing decisions to help you with any organizing projects you have.
We’re going to start with this cabinet area. Whenever you are working with shelving, you want to start from the bottom and work your way up. You may find you don’t need all of the shelves. Working from the bottom helps you see the space you have and adjust and remove shelves as needed. When reorganizing, the most important thing is to store items where you use them and store like with like.
And a lot of clients asked me, “Well, what do I need to buy before you show up?” And I say, “nothing.” Because we don’t know what organizing products that you need, and generally, 99% of the time, we can repurpose what the client already has.
Now that we’ve gone through and organized the laundry room, I’m going to go through the thought process that we went through; hopefully, it will help with your decision-making when organizing your home.
We’ve got our washer and dryer over towards the corner. Above it, we’ve stored the detergent and fabric softeners so that they’re within easy access of the machines. I am a big fan of storing lightbulbs and batteries in the laundry room, and we have those right in a cabinet above the washer.
As I mentioned earlier, you don’t always know what you need as far as organizing supplies until you’re done. So we have some temporary containers that Suzanne can use until she can go out and purchase what she wants. Some of the containers will be changing to better suit her needs, but we have like categories of items with like items for now. We’ve stored some of the cleaning supplies that aren’t used regularly in this cabinet above the dryer. It’s a little harder to reach, but it makes sense as they aren’t used as often.
Next to the machines, we have some tall cabinets, where we started at the bottom. It’s important that interior and exterior paints are stored inside, or they’ll dry up in the hot Arizona weather. So we’ve placed them at the very bottom of the cabinet; since they are heavy, they aren’t used often, so you won’t be bending over all the time to use them, only as needed. Above that, we’ve stored the smaller paints and spray paints.
Now, cleaning supplies that are used on a more regular basis are at more of a mid-level. They’re easy to access, stored in a bin where you can still see from the front, and it easily pulls out to access supplies from front to back. We’ve also stored a few pantry items at waist height, which makes them very accessible.
Moving up, we have lunch boxes and reusable grocery bags stored in a pull-out box for grab-and-go. Above that, we have rags; they’re a little higher up but still reachable. And at the very top, some overflow items, in this case, extra flushable wipes.
When Suzanne did the space planning for her closet, she needed additional space for her and her husband’s jackets. So we have those in this second, tall cabinet here, where they’re stored nicely out of the way.
In this corner, she’s going to put a freezer. On this wall, opposite the cabinets, we have a wall-mounted rack to hang cleaning supplies, mops, brooms, dusters, the like. So it’s very nice and stores like with like.
And then on our far wall, we’ve pulled out some of her dishes that are used for entertaining, that aren’t used regularly. So now she was able to free up some space in her pantry and kitchen. And then we’ve placed the air fryer and some cookbooks in this cabinet as well. As we went through the process, we probably moved every shelf in here while finding the right spot for items.
Near the door, we’ve got a bench with shoes stored underneath, so they’re being stored where they’re used. And there’s a cabinet in the hall to the kitchen, so in here, we’ve stored all our pet supplies that are used regularly. So they are stored nicely but still within easy access. And in the second half of the cabinet, we have some pull-out drawers which store extra sandwich bags, tissues, and trash bags, so they’re easy to grab and replace when the main house is out. And above that, we’ve got our everyday cleaning supplies.
I hope this helps you get some ideas about reorganizing your home or laundry area! If you’d like help getting your laundry room organized, give professional home organizer Bridges Conner a call at 480-297-7355 or contact us for a free consultation.