Designing and Organizing Your Laundry Room
Today is all about the laundry room because we spend so much time in there! I want to touch on three components of a laundry room: space planning, how to organize your laundry room efficiently, and items we love for laundry rooms.
Space Planning and Designing Your Laundry Room
For a quick weekend project, Container Store does a great job of setting up and space planning a laundry room that you can DIY.
But for a more designer laundry room or if you need someone to organize your laundry room then we can certainly help! Here are some things to consider when renovating your laundry room:
Is this room strictly for laundry or is it also functioning as a small office, a mudroom, a hub for storing shoes, sports equipment, dirty laundry, cleaning supplies or other things?
Do you need a sink? Consider whether or not you will want or need a sink in the laundry room. A sink is great to hand wash delicate clothes, to presoak stained items, to rinse chlorine from swimsuits, to wash the dog, and also to wash muddy shoes and hands. A laundry room sink is super convenient but you’ll need to decide if you can allocate the space. If you are in a small space you may consider more counter space to fold clothes.
How many clothes do I air dry? If you are washing clothes and hanging drying lots of items then you’ll need to consider space for a drying rack. See below for our fave drying racks!
How much time am I spending in this room? I spend a lot of time in my laundry room because this is where I also fold clothes so I want it to feel amazing while I’m working in there.
Also think about what else needs to go in your laundry room. Do you need a space for the ironing board? What your mops, brooms and other cleaning supplies?
How to Organize Your Laundry Room
Having a clean and organized laundry room can make help you feel in control. Here are some tips from Angie on how to organize your laundry room and keep it tidy.
Costco is awesome but that doesn’t mean you need to buy 400 rolls of toilet paper each time you go to Costco. Oftentimes people just buy more supplies than what their laundry room can hold, so be mindful when making those trips to big box stores.
Contain and label everything. Each item should have a designated space and should be able to fit - see above on not buying too many items at Costco! When we label bins, baskets and bowls, it helps us stay organized and reminds us that only those labeled items belong there.
Cleaning supplies need to be separated from paper goods and anything valuable as spills may occur and you don’t want to ruin anything that is meaningful to you (decorations, food or drinks, etc).
Cabinets are your friends but things can get lost inside a cabinet, especially for those cabinets that are above height level. Make sure you’re putting your daily or weekly items that you’ll need often on cabinets within reach so you don’t have to pull out that step ladder every time you need something!
Items We Love for the Laundry Room
Drying Racks are a must in every laundry room.
Ballard Designs: https://www.ballarddesigns.com/beadboard-drying-rack/286725
I’ve had this rack for more than TEN years from Ballard Designs and have used it every week and it is still in perfect shape. These come in various sizes. I have the small size and it works well to hang up workout clothes, blouses, jeans and more. I love that it shuts and is flat against the wall when not in use.
Laundry detergents we love:
The Laundress. It seems like an investment but this gallon size that we LOVE gives you 120 loads, making it around $0.68 per fresh load of laundry! It’s about twice the price of Tide pods (around $0.25 per pod) but The Laundress uses less ingredients and you’ll smell delicious.
Tyler’s DIVA Glamorous Wash is a local Texas favorite. This laundry wash is divine and when you use it you’ll smell like you just put on perfume. I can immediately smell someone who uses it and every time I take a deep breath in and tell myself I need to go buy some of this laundry detergent! It’s about $0.70 per load. I also love this as a housewarming gift because you can buy the small size of detergent and then add in their dryer sheet sachet in the DIVA scent which is magical.
Washer and Dryers we love:
There are so many washer and dryers to choose from and the price range is wide. It can be daunting to try and pick on out but I’ll tell you that I have had many washer and dryers in my life but hands down LG is my favorite washing machine. Angie and I both have LG washer and dryers in our homes and we couldn’t ask for better machines! Angie prefers the LG front load and I prefer their top load washing machine.
Front Load Washing Machines: https://www.lg.com/us/front-load-washers
Top Load Washing Machines: https://www.lg.com/us/top-load-washers
BONUS: The cute little song that LG plays at the end of each load is darling.
Good Housekeeping Institute Home Care and Cleaning Lab did a laundry machine test and here are their top 5 picks for top loading washing machines (LG did not make the top 5 but I swear by my LG top loader!). https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/washer-reviews/g43857589/best-top-loading-washing-machines/
Here are Good Housekeeping’s top 6 picks for front loading washing machines and LG made 2 of the top six picks!
If you have a small laundry room or if you just want the latest technology, look at the all in one washer dryer from GE. While it can take 2 hours to do a load of laundry, you only need one machine. Just the idea of putting a load of clothes into the washer and in the morning they are dry and ready to go…Yes, please! In a perfect world I’d buy two of these machines so I had 2 loads of laundry going at one time. I’m happy this washer dryer combo has 2,000 reviews and an overall rating of 4.6 which tells me it’s the real deal! Way to go GE on an all in one washer dryer machine.
I hope this article gives you some inspiration on how to organize your laundry room. You may not fall in love with doing laundry but at least you can love the space you’re in while folding clothes!
Comment if you’d buy this washer/dryer combo…I wish I had two of them!! :-)