***Your Clothes are Neat and Organized, Why Isn't Your Laundry Room?

Does your bedroom closet put the rest of your house to shame? Are your clothes and shoes meticulously organized? Is every nook and cranny optimized for maximum space and efficiency? If the answer is yes, then congratulations. You’ve learned the art of organization. Now it’s time to apply those same lessons to other parts of the house.

The laundry room is often one of the last spaces people organize, but a little organization goes a long way there. With some organization, laundry can become a quicker and easier task – and it can help you take better care of your clothes.
If your closet is neat and tidy, you’ve probably put some organization products to work – such as shoe racks, sweater boxes, dust covers for hanging clothing, tie and belt racks, etc. All of these products work the same way – they group like items and keep them dust free and out of sight when they’re not in use. These basic techniques certainly apply to laundry room organization too.

First picture an unorganized laundry room. Piles of stray socks cover the top of the dryer, waiting for their mate to be found. Dryer sheets, laundry detergent and fabric softener fill up any remaining surface space. A collection of dryer lint is growing on the floor. And just to walk into the room, you need to step over the broom and vacuum. An ironing board keeps falling from behind the door and there’s a pile of clean, folded towels sitting on the floor – threatening to fall into the piles of dirty clothes awaiting their turn in the washing machine. This is chaos – and few among us work well in chaos.

The answer is to get organized and make your laundry room a more pleasant setting. Even the smallest laundry room can benefit from the lessons here because they’re all based on creating space and being able to quickly put your hands on what you need.

By creating space, we’re not talking about knocking down a wall and enlarging the laundry room. That would be wonderful, but it probably won’t happen. Instead, create organized space using the walls that are already there. First, add wire shelving above the washing machine and dryer. This space can hold all the stuff you have covering the tops of the appliances – detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets – as well as a small bucket of clothespins, cleaning products and a pair of eyeglasses so you can read the washing instructions on new clothing. If there is room between the washer and dryer, insert a set of drawers that will hold products. Now you’ll be able to clear off the tops of appliances and use that space for sorting laundry and folding clothing. As for that iron that keeps falling out from behind the door, get an over-the-door ironing board and iron holder. And those stray socks? Throw them out. Their mates left them a long time ago.

To keep your clothing looking good, you need to handle it carefully. If a tag says hand-wash, then do not throw it in the washing machine. If it says “lay flat to dry,” then do just that. This is where some laundry room products can be used to help. There are all kinds of gadgets that can make the various laundry tasks easier, starting with space-saving, portable drying racks. There’s a drying rack that hooks onto the dryer and folds out to offer a flat drying surface that can accommodate one sweater or blouse. There’s an indoor, retractable clothes line that lets you hang up delicates. There’s even a pop-up clothes hanger that lets you take clothes straight from the dryer to a hanger so you won’t have to break out the iron. If there’s not enough room for a portable clothes hanger, then place an over-the-door rack that will hold eight to 10 hangers. The trick is to get everything up and out of the way.

Part of an organized laundry room also means that you have the products you need right at your finger tips. That means you probably want to keep a bottle of gentle detergent for your hand-wash items, as well as a couple different kinds of spot removers or pre-wash treatments. Face it. When most people do laundry, they aren’t quick to leave the laundry room and search for a stain remover. They’re going to throw the spotted clothing in the pile and keep plowing ahead.

There are also a host of products that make it easier to wash some odd-shaped items or ones that keep delicate items safe in the washing machine. There’s a cap washer that allows you to throw those well-worn, stinky baseball caps into the top shelf of the dishwasher, and a “BraBaby” that protects a bra’s lace, padding and underwire from getting mangled in the washer or the dryer.

Use these tips and products to whip your laundry room into shape today. With some thoughtful planning and a little time and effort, your laundry room will be just as neat and tidy as that beautiful closet of yours.