Sunday, April 14, 2013

Organizational Gems: Laundry Style

Happy Sunday!  Sadly, tomorrow is Monday.  That's horrible, but knowing that I have only 8 weeks left of school makes me want to go and get it over with. 

SO, what might come as a shock to many people is this--my husband is extremely organized.  Sometimes.  He's organized when it comes to his personal space: this being the basement and the garage.  I'm organized in theory, but I could use some work.  Being a wife requires one to take over the organizational aspects of things that were formerly only for moms.  Example: laundry.  I've been physically doing my laundry since I was probably 12.  But I all I had to do was run the machine.  The whole concept of where to hang the clothes, where the keep the detergent, where to keep dirty clothes, was all foreign to me.  Weird, I know.

My husband helped me tremendously in making the best use out of our laundry closet.  I call it a closet because it's literally a closet.  See?
I recently tried to do some spring cleaning and started with this room.  I tried to rearrange and organize everything the best that I could.  So here it is.

We bought these awesome hanging shelves from Lowe's when we first moved into the house.  My hubby was the one who chose them so I can't take full credit. 


The shelf that came with the house is way too high.  So I keep all my frequently used stuff here.  Note the oxi-clean.  Best stain remover ever.

Above that shelf is one of my favorite pinterest finds.  I used chalkboard paint on some cheap plastic bins I found at Wal-Mart or something.

Since the laundry room is so small, I always ended up with clothes overflowing into the kitchen.  Not cute.  So when I saw some rendition of this on pinterest, I had to do it.  I can start one load and put whatever is leftover into the whites or darks bin. 

Next to those are my massive amounts of laundry detergent.  Keep in mind that I'm a frequent wholesale club shopper so if I have a coupon for something, I'll buy it in enormous quantities.  And detergent and tissues are things you're always going to need, right?
Underneath are rags in an easy to reach spot.  The hangers are for any clothes I don't put in the dryer.  Which is actually more than I ever put IN the dryer. 

My hubby also found this great huge shelf at Lowe's.
(Ignore the nasty paint splattered laundry tub from the massive amount of painting we did  last year.)  Thanks to my reorganization, I now have a soap/dog shampoo self, towel shelf, and cleaning shelf.  I was so annoyed with having to carry all my cleaning supplies into the bathroom when I was cleaning.  (no room in the bathroom for storage)  So I got a bin that I can just carry in there.  Much easier.  And I used my good ol' chalkboard paint to label it :)
Up top I put the wholesale toilet paper and paper towels.  Those are also 2 things you never want to run out of.  And I've found it's way cheaper to buy them wholesale and just store them.  Although that is kind of a pain.  Next to the shelf is another great Lowe's find that I highly recommend.  It has hooks, levers, and a lot of other confusing looking things.  But it holds all our mops, brooms, and awkwardly shaped items. 
Speaking of which, I was mopping today and realized that I have the worst mop known to man.  I'm pretty sure we got it at Drug Mart. 

Finally, above the laundry tub I have the widest assortment of cleaning products that anyone could ever need (and light bulbs).
I honestly can't tell you why we have all of this.  I guess not all of it is for cleaning.  Some is shoe water proofer,  hair spray, etc.  Which brings me to my next point.
This is the best solution for getting ink stains out of clothing.  At Bob's last job, he was always putting uncapped pens into his white coat.  WHITE.  What a disaster.  Someone at his work once told me to try hair spray to get them out.  Cheap hair spray.  So I bought the cheapest kind I could find.  I sprayed it on the ink and used a toothbrush to scrub it.  I also put a little oxi-clean mixed with water on it before throwing it in the wash.  Seriously, this is the only way I could get these stains to come out.  Some of them were months old so they only faded.  But the newer ones came right out! 

Despite this solution, I will say that I'm very happy to not be cleaning those coats anymore :)

Well, I hope I didn't embarrass myself too much by putting this scary room out there.  The good news is that the laundry room doesn't have to be scary.  As a wife, I spend a lot of time going in and out of there and I can finally find everything I need!







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