For MONTHS I have been pouring over pictures of laundry/mudrooms on Pinterest and other places looking for inspiration!
I have a small, narrow space that doubles as my laundry area AND as a mud room...and lately it's lack of organization has been driving me crazy!
Man oh man are there some AMAZING laundry/mud rooms out there!
Here are a few fairly SIMPLE ones I found:
And here's some more ELABORATE ones:
While I have found many, many examples I would love to replicate...but with limited space and funds...what I REALLY needed was just a few key changes that would help control the chaos.
So here are a couple of BEFORE and AFTERS of my humble updates that have made ALL the difference in the world (for now).
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| BEFORE |
THIS is probably the thing that drives me the MOST CRAZY! Shoes in a pile on the floor! This is actually not a BAD picture of this space...it can look MUCH worse. lol. My "rule" is one pair of shoes per person can be in this room...the rest have to be in their closets or in the garage (winter boots, etc.). But even when that rule is being followed (which is rare!), it's still annoying to have shoes haphazardly thrown there. Someone is always tripping on an errant shoe that has escaped it's ambiguous confines.
So this is what I came up with for a grand total of about $24.00 for both at Walmart!
And if we didn't have such large FEET in this family, I could probably fit even more shoes than this! :-)
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| AFTER |
Better huh?? I'm personally thrilled with this minor change.
Then on the other end of this space....my dirty laundry issue.
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| BEFORE |
This has always been how we have corralled the dirty laundry in the laundry room. One big basket on the floor right across from the washer and dryer. The "apple basket" only comes out during the winter and holds winter gloves and hat. Pretty comprehensive system huh?
Well, this turned out to be one of those, "Why didn't I do this a LONG time ago?" moments...because for approximately $14.00 I purchased this laundry sorter at Walmart to replace both baskets.
The winter gloves and hats moved over to "the mudroom" end on the new wire shelving...and the clothes stayed here. Now I can even SORT them as they come into the laundry for washing! I'm going to make a couple of cute signs of some sort to hang on the the front, so the "men" in this house won't have any excuse for mixing them all up. ;-)
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| AFTER |
I still have hopes of creating a "dream" laundry room/mud room space someday. A place where the laundry does itself and there's never any mud! Oh wait...that IS a dream! That's OK...I'm content with dreaming for now....because even these LITTLE organizing efforts have gone a LONG way towards saving my sanity. :-)
Keeping Mom out of the insane asylum is today's.....
Jillee, your blog is just a delight to read!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm so glad you think so. :-) And thanks for taking time to leave a note! Makes my day!
ReplyDelete...thanks for posting a "realistic" way to help with your organization/clutter for your laundry room. I too, have almost the exact same set of over the top,to more toned down versions pinned or saved to my computer for mudroom/laundry room. You have no idea, how much this post, just got me to lighten up an do what I can, to help "my space". Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteThe very first picture *is* my laundry room at the house. Well, layout anyway. The ceiling slopes up to 9' over the W/D so there is an enormous amount of vertical space to optimize. It's not handy since it requires a stepladder to reach, but for long-term storage it's killer.
ReplyDeleteWhen you figure out how to get the troops trained to put their OWN freakin' shoes in the basket and to both bring their laundry in there AND to appropriately sort it, it will be your best post *ever*.
Your post made me realize that I had tried to make that tiny room make up for everything else I couldn't find room for in this little 1600sf house. There's no pantry in the kitchen, so those shelves to the right of the washer are pantry storage and my sorter is in the same place. There's a plastic garage shelving unit behind your back as you're standing at the washer to hold bulk dry goods and laundry needs, a 3-unit utility room cabinet above the w/d with a closet wire shelf above it. Another shelf over the outside door (where you'd be standing taking that picture). Brooms/mops etc hanging to one side of that outside door, and the cat box on the opposite side. It's too cram packed and impossible to keep everything from getting linty. On top of everything, since it's an outside door, the outdoors muck and grime lands here first. I guess your post finally made me see that any room has a finite amount of space and I am too inclined to fill in every bit of white space. Hmmm...a whole epiphany is happening right here. See what you do??!!
Oh, Jillee, how do you know just what it is that I've been putting off? The procrastinator in me hates you and the practical me can't get enough of you!
ReplyDeleteLove your blog and GREAT ideas! I found a laundry sorting basket with 3 separate sorting bags that looks nice. My laundry room is in a pass through room between the garage and kitchen. There was plenty of room for a sorting basket or bin but I wanted something that didn't look like a bin. Found it at Target online: search "Household Essentials Triple Sorter - Seagrass". Liked it so much, went back for 2 more to use as sorting bins upstairs near the bedrooms!
ReplyDelete