Laundry rooms come in all shapes and sizes, from small closets to full-sized spaces. Between the deluge of unending dirty clothes, the difficulty of sorting clothing by care needs, and the fact that your laundry room often pulls double-duty as a storage room—not to mention that guests rarely have cause to see your laundry room—it’s clear why this space can become a bit of a dumping ground and quickly devolve into disorganized chaos.
When you’re browsing the many luxurious and spacious laundry organization products online or in home magazines, finding an organization solution that will work for you can seem impossible. No matter how large or small a space you’re dealing with, there are a variety of ways to get your laundry area organized—and keep it organized. Read on for our organization advice.
1. Create a separate area
Closing off the laundry room can make the rest of your house look cleaner and feel more organized, since you don’t have to worry about always putting things back just-so. Bonus: you aren’t constantly being reminded about all the laundry you’re avoiding.
- Use curtains or a barn door to conceal a doorless laundry room
- Conceal your washer and dryer inside a large cabinet or closet:
2. Take advantage of vertical space
Using wall space is a great way to keep things off the floor and out of the way, especially in smaller laundry rooms where stuff tends to pile up. Maximize your use of wall-space with:
- Pegboard—this is a creative way to add instant and infinitely customizable organization to your laundry room that you can update as-needed by simply rearranging the pegs. Check out this pegboard wall by @stylewellhomestaging:
- Shelving, overhead cupboards, and hooks above, around, and below your washer and dryer (if there’s space)
- Over-the-door organizers for your various laundry products keep them sorted and easy-to-access.
- Use wall-racks, tension rods, and fold-down tables and ironing boards for air-drying, ironing, and folding clothing without taking up floor space.
3. Utilize nooks and crannies
In especially small laundry rooms, the trick is to make use of every single inch of space. Doing so in a way that looks good and helps you stay organized can feel difficult, but it’s not impossible. Try:
- Adding a table or countertop over top of your appliances like @kdiondesign:
- Using the space between washer and dryer like @myvictoriangem—this will also make it easier to reclaim any socks that get lost between and behind the machines.
4. Get organized with containers
One of the best ways to stay organized in a laundry room is by using bins, baskets, jars and hampers. Keep them out of the way by creating dedicated areas for them.
- Basket shelves make it easy to store your laundry baskets and sort your dirty clothes immediately into whites, colors, delicates, heavily soiled, and bulky items to simplify and speed up the process
- Organize supplies into clearly labelled baskets or bins, like these bins by @dwell.organized:
- Hide hampers for a sleeker look
- Or put your hampers on wheels so they are easy to move around
- Collect your commonly-used items in a tray for a decorative look
- Or store them on a lazy susan for added convenience like @systemsbysusie:
5. Combine rooms
If you lack space in your home, you can make your laundry room do double duty. Add in a desk that can function as a laundry folding table as well as a work desk, workshop, gift-wrapping station, or crafting area.
6. Add some creative touches
Take your laundry room organization from good to great with some additional features to make your life a little easier:
- Notice board, like this one by @100things2do.ca for socks missing their mate to make finding them easier:
- Small kits relevant to laundry room tasks, such as a sewing kit, stain removal gear, or shoe care supplies
- A sorting tray or shoe organizer to sort and store loose change or cash, buttons, lipstick or balm, or other items commonly found in pockets.
- Print off and laminate or frame useful laundry information, such as a stain chart with detailed information about how to remove it so the information is right there when you need it, or a guide to laundry care symbols, because sometimes you just don’t feel like Googling what a single dot in a circle in a square means when you’re trying to get through a month’s worth of laundry (for the record, it’s tumble dry low heat
- A laundry chute that doubles as a slide to make doing laundry a little bit more enjoyable
- A cubby hole for your pet(s), so they can be ready and waiting to cover your clothes in fur as soon as they’re fresh out of the dryer
Conclusion
While getting your laundry room set up and organized may not feel like a priority when you’re unpacking your home or trying to get your space tidied up, it will make doing laundry that much easier. Organizing your laundry room can be as simple as:
- Creating a separate area
- Maximizing vertical space
- Utilizing nooks and crannies
- Using containers
- Combining rooms
- Adding some creative touches
Get the rest of your house in order with our other organization guides. |
About the author: Rachel Hazzard is the Content Solutions Manager for TSI, a seven-time honoree on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies. After years in the industry, she’s an expert on packing, organizing, and downsizing. When she’s not working, you’ll likely find her eating out or hanging with her cat Nilla.
