25 Days To A More Organized You Day Five: The Laundry Room

Since we're working on keeping up with the laundry this weekend, I thought we might as well go with the laundry theme tonight!  This laundry room makeover is one of my all-time favorite organizing posts, and believe it or not, this laundry re-organization that I posted two years ago STILL looks this good. (The only issue I've had is with clothes to be ironed . . . if someone wants to hire me a laundress I'd really, really appreciate it!) If you have a tiny laundry room like I do, don't lose heart . . . you can get yours organized too. 😉

(originally posted January 2012)

I'm going to just go right ahead and share our dirty laundry (quite literally!) here today. 🙂 I've spent the last five years detesting our laundry room, because it felt like there just wasn't any hope for a cute-“Pinterested” laundry room. It's tiny, and hidden away from just about everything as it's upstairs, so we've had no motivation to do anything with it. (My husband looked at my laundry room board on Pinterest, and said “you know, those aren't laundry rooms, those are living rooms!”)

But, I finally decided mine could be so much better than what it was (right?) Here's what I've looked at for way too long (and I just went right ahead and took the pic in spite of the mass chaos . . . yikes!)

And here's what it looks like after about five hours of work this week and $125. (It could have been done for way less moo-lah, but I decided to splurge a little on the baskets at Target. . . .)

I found the paint at Lowe's for $5 in their mis-matched paint bin (always watch those bins!), and purchased the baskets for $20 each at Target (which was way too much, but they were so perfect!) The verse was at Hobby Lobby in their vinyl lettering section, and I used a 40% off coupon, which made it $14. All my bargain Tide, Resolve, and Publix Bleach are now safely stored up above in the baskets, and you don't see them . . . WOOHOO! (The wreath was actually hanging in a different spot in our home and I'm not sure that I love it, but I'm hoping to find a spring colored wreath in the after-Easter clearance sales.)

I even took a few minutes to cut my fabric softener sheets in half (half works just as well as one, and is a great way to pinch an extra penny!)

I've actually kept it this clean since Tuesday (wooohoo!), and am amazed at the difference that having an organized area to work in makes.  I even purchased tons of plastic hangers, which are just complete luxury. (I know that sounds nuts, but I've never purchased a hanger in my life! I finally got tired though of fighting wire hangers, so I decided that at this point in my life they were worth the splurge.)

Obviously the biggest change in the laundry room was getting the laundry done, and more importantly, put away. I hadn't really ironed in over six months, so all those clothes had just about taken over. Last Sunday I took my laptop to the laundry room, put on a free Amazon Prime movie, and worked for a solid 2 1/2 hours just ironing (eek!) Here's the conclusion that I came to: I can procrastinate as much as I want, but the ironing takes as long to do today as it does if I wait and do it in two weeks, or even six months. So, I'm determining to keep on top of this, because I never want to see that mess again!

Do you have any other suggestions on how to organize a tiny laundry room? I'd love to hear them, so feel free to leave a comment HERE to share!