Saturday, April 21, 2012

I like my laundry room. I love my husband.


I think Flylady is the one who said, "Nothing says I love you like a drawer full of clean underwear."  Or something like that. Apparently The Husband believes that is true, because
  • He went through the motions of doing laundry with me just so we could figure out the most efficient setup for our new laundry room.
  • He sold all his scrap metal for the purpose of remodeling the laundry room.
  • He put in several late nights and a couple of weekends to make my utility room very useful and very pretty.
I have always loved the fact that my house has a dedicated laundry room, but I have never set it up so that I could use it to its full potential.  Another big challenge is that our laundry room is a storage room also.  We only have one large closet in the whole house.  And one more thing.  Why can't the room in which I spend so much time be pretty?

BEFORE view from the hallway:

In short, it was overused and under-appreciated.

My system:  Dirty clothes went in the navy sorter and white hampers on the right (I was over sorting), and clean clothes went from dryer into appropriate baskets (one basket for each room).  Then I carried the baskets into the appropriate room and folded and put up in one step.  I liked my system, but I didn't like the mess it made (notice the baskets lined up in front of the dryer).

BEFORE looking left from doorway:
The husband's three major complaints were that the full-size door stole precious space inside the room, the ugly water heater was too visible, and that the hanging rod was pieced-together old shower curtains.

BEFORE looking right from doorway:
My two major requests: 
  • I wanted the shelf storage to be more organized and calm-looking.
  • I had a picture in my mind of a shelf system for my clean laundry baskets.  I did not even borrow this idea from Pinterest, thank you very much!  The closest thing I found online was this pin.

This is what we came up with.
AFTER view from hallway.
1.  It's pretty.  It is amazing what a coat of paint or two will do for a room.  The curtains and matching shelf brackets help, too.
2.  Quad sorter on the left limits sorting to everyday (towels, jeans, underwear, etc.), dark nice, and light nice with one hamper for special items (dry clean, hand wash, etc.).  I plan to label the hampers so anyone can sort the laundry!
3.   The door is gone.  We plan to put in a bifold door so we can close the door on the room but still save space.  We just haven't found one yet that is sturdy enough.

 AFTER looking to right
4.  The water heater is hidden by a curtain hanging on a swinging rod similar to this from Lowe's.

AFTER looking to left

5.  We put in a pretty curtain rod and brackets for a hanging rod.  It is much smaller and fits the purpose of  a temporary hanging space.
6.  I bought black file boxes and white stackable storage baskets from Wal-Mart so that everything goes into a box.
AFTER looking to right
My favorite storage solution is this mini chest of drawers that holds safety pins (for socks), batteries, string, clothespins, etc., etc.  There are now no random bowls and containers collecting dust and cluttering the space!
 7.  Finally, these are my roll-out shelves for clean laundry.  I can fold clothes into these baskets from the counter top or (more likely) stuff unfolded clothes into the appropriate basket and take the basket to the room where the clean laundry belongs.  I don't fold most of our towels and wash cloths anyway. By the way, if anyone needs extra-long drawer slides for a similar project, let me know.  We accidentally bought ten sets from Amazon and only used four.

I say I am spoiled.  The Husband says I am just well taken care of. 

Remember how I said I spent so much time in this room?  It's ironic that now that the room is efficient, I don't have to spend much time in it at all.

5 comments:

AMAY said...

Great job! Wonderful husbands and organized laundry rooms make for happy women....I know.

pippygirly said...

i had no idea you had a blog.. i am going to follow. and i love the pictures. it looks great!!

AIMA said...

Thanks! And I get really excited about new followers!

Unknown said...

Great Design and Layout. It looks wonderful!

May I ask how wide your laundry basket drawers are. Your laundry room layout looks a lot like mine and I would love to have my own drawer system for folding. Thanks!

AIMA said...

Thank you, Kate.

The drawers themselves are 19 inches wide, and the frame is 3/4 inch cabinet grade plywood.

There is about 13 3/4 inches from the bottom of one drawer to the bottom of the next vertically. We picked out baskets first and just built it to fit them.