I promised a real before-and-after post about my laundry room.
Because here was the real before picture of one thing that had been in my way in the laundry room for weeks months:
My rolling cart which never fit after I got my last washing machine. I had been moving it out of the laundry room every Laundry Day. Then I’d leave it out in the hallway (where we were always running into it) until I found out someone was coming over. I’d move it back into the laundry room until the next Laundry Day .
Since it didn’t have a real home, it became a clutter magnet.
It was just so convenient. Such a great place to hang clothes, drape clothes that shouldn’t go in the dryer, or generally shove anything I felt like shoving.
I was more-than-a-little excited that my new set made room for this super-narrow cart.
But before it went neatly into its new spot, it needed to not be a big, ridiculous mess.
Time to declutter.
Step One: Get rid of the easy stuff.
The easiest of the easy stuff is trash. It’s always trash. Even if that means assessing the situation and realizing there’s no trash. Which never happens to me. I always find trash.
The other easy stuff is stuff that has a home somewhere else. I don’t need to get creative and DECIDE where to put something, I just need to move it to the home it already has, but wasn’t in.
Things like:
A pink bandanna that needs to go where pink bandannas go, the Christmas towel that needs to go with Christmas stuff, and the piece of a really cool puzzle book thingy that needs to go in the trash. Because I put the really cool puzzle book thingy in the trash when I realized I’d “lost” some of the pieces.
I kept removing things that were easy, taking them where they needed to go right then, and consolidating the things that were there. I rounded up one of Hubby’s oh-so-useful leftover coffee canisters to hold coffee-scented clothespins, and put my cleaning cloth container on the cart since the top of the dryer is no longer a flat surface.
That container doesn’t actually fit, but oh well. (If you thought you were going to find amazing and perfect organizing ideas, I’m sorry.) Wonder why there’s writing on my cleaning cloths? Here’s why.
Once it held only what I needed (it was decluttered, not organized), I could slide the cart into its new (or old, depending how you look at it) home. I’ve loved having this stuff in a real home, out of the way, and my laundry room has been much easier to keep under control.
Yay for that.
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My laundry room is essentially a “pass-through” … you have to walk through the laundry room to get to the garage. The space between my washer and dryer is crammed with stuff….Maybe I need a cart like yours to fit my space.
There is one thing that works well for me though — I put a shoe organizer on the back to hold my cleaning supplies (like this pin https://www.pinterest.com/pin/560979697306896307/ ) I keep cleaning cloths and dusters in the lower pockets b/c I have small kids. The shoe organizer was under $6 at Walmart, too! It has stayed neat and organized for over a year (unlike the rest of this house!) Just like you say, if stuff has a home, things are a lot easier to keep under control!
Looks great =D I have questions though. How is your laundry not covered in dryer lint? And not related but (okay 2 questions) what do you do when you’re sick (or knowing you’re coming down with something and are going to be sick)? I’ve been trying to do dishes, and even getting some done helps. Laundry seems to pile up too, dinners are hard work. Running out of tissues is blerch and washing my hair seems to be a job that leaves me ruined.
What do you mean about the dryer lint?
Do what you can. I’m not the amazing recovered slob who will drag herself out of bed to do the dishes when she’s sick, but the more I keep up with things on normal days, the less of a disaster it is when things like that happen.
I’m almost recovered and in the past I would have spent today cleaning the house because I couldn’t stand the mess any more. Then I would probably have ended up going backwards on the recovery front because I’d over done it. I’m pleased to say that I am just doing my daily chore on that day as much as I can and the house is not as bad as it could/would be.
A few day’s in of being sick and I’d really wished I’d put more effort in on the first few days getting prepared for not being able to do anything, but my brain just goes all fuzzy and I couldn’t think of what to do. I wanted a checklist of things that would help. Several days into being sick and the kitchen being a total disaster I was needing to clean before I could eat and I was just exhausted by the time I finished doing enough dishes that there was some bench to use and things to eat off that I had to sit down for a bit before I could prepare food.
I found myself thinking ‘What would Dana do, especially if her whole family was sick too?’ And a few days later it occurred to me that Dana probably would have had paper plates so dishes wouldn’t even happen, and some meals half way cooked in the freezer and I wondered if there were some other ‘mama tricks’ that were eluding me.
Do you mean your laundry room is covered in dryer lint or your actual laundry? When my laundry room collets dryer lint I sweep it or I don’t depending on my mood?. If your laundry comes out of the dryer covered in lint it might be broken.
It’s the room itself. And it’s been like that for the last 3 dryers we’ve had. So it’s not just one particular brand or machine. I’ll clean it up and after one load it’s back, after a few loads it looks like I haven’t dusted in there for a decade. I clean my lint filter pretty much every single time I dry a load.
Clean your dryers vent tube. Worked wonders for us.
I’ve done that with my past dryers but this one is an older style dryer where the venting is at the front, and I remove the lint every wash. I thought we might as will try the different style in the hopes it would make a difference.