Declutter Your House: 5 Tricks to Organize the Laundry Room

Containing clutter is a constant struggle. But the solutions don’t have to cost a lot. And the peace of mind that comes with an organized house? Priceless.

We present a series that shows you how to declutter your house, one room at a time, with budget in mind. For the second installment, we tackle the laundry room. A necessity in life, laundry is not always fun. But it doesn’t feel like a chore if done in a tidy space you actually enjoy.

Give the laundry room a good cleaning.
It may sound silly to clean a room used to clean your clothes, but you want to start fresh. Take an inventory of what you have and toss what you no longer use. Now is a good time to give the walls a fresh coat of paint, too.

Install cabinets or shelves above the washer and dryer.
If you have wall space above the washing machine and dryer, use it! If adding cabinets isn’t in the budget, shelving can also do the trick. Available at your local hardware store, wall-mounted shelves also include the brackets you need to install them.

Use the cabinets or shelves for storing the essentials: laundry detergent, fabric softener, bleach, stain removers, iron, starch, clothespins, and other cleaning supplies. Group like items in baskets and line them up neatly along the shelf.

Another laundry room must-have: a rod installed underneath the shelves to hold hangers.

Use or create drawer space.
Some washers and dryers come with drawers for storage. That’s certainly handy. But if yours don’t, you can build your own “drawers.”

A sturdy DIY pedestal, like this or this, is one way to create storage space where there previously was none. Lifting the washing machine and dryer off the ground allows you to put laundry baskets and other solutions underneath them, tucked neatly out of site.

Rent-A-Center can deliver and set up your washer and dryer — even on a storage platform in your laundry room — at no extra charge.

Use vertical shelving or a rolling cart.
If you are lucky enough to have a larger laundry room, consider a shelving unit that sits on the floor, to store your supplies vertically. Also available at your local supercenter: a slim utility cart that fits pretty much anywhere — even that tight spot between your appliance and the wall.

If the shelving unit and cart don’t come with wheels, you can often add them on. Then you can wheel around your supplies while you’re doing chores.

Take advantage of blank walls.
Vertical wall space can be a lifesaver in a small room like a laundry room, where floor space often is limited.

Install simple hooks to hang jackets and coats, an ironing board, or mops and brooms. Hooks work on the back of a door, too, if there is no available walls space.

You also can use a blank wall to create a “control center,” using baskets or boxes and hooks, for mail and other important documents, backpacks, purses, or bags.

Now that your laundry room is organized, you can focus on more important things: like getting your kids to help with those chores.

For more inspiration, take a look at these after photos:

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Stacey Rayburn is the owner of Organized Chaos With a Twist.