Laundry room clean up.

I mentioned before in my laundry routine post how I would LOVE to make-over the laundry room in my in-law's house. Well I decided to just do it. I turned it into a gift to thank my MIL for always being so helpful with Ellie. 

The BEFORES

The AFTERS

I pulled all of the clothes down and swapped out mismatched hangers for matching white ones to eliminate some visual clutter. 

previously this wall was blank and the laundry hamper was shoved on the other wall. Random laundry and misc stuff sat on the floor. 

I got the huge cloth bin on the top because it matched the other small ones. After trying cleaning supplies in it, I realized it was much too big, and destined for much to high up to hold anything heavy. Elsewhere in the house was a costco size package of paper towels, they fit perfectly in the bin. 

I didnt have enough of the fabric bins for everything so I used some plastic shoe boxes. I have an idea to dress up the front to eliminate a little of the visual clutter though, perhaps later. 

The excuse I gave for starting the reorganization was my very tall bottle of Ecos laundry soap that previously lived on the floor, Ellie learned to twist off caps, so it, the bleach and the Clorox 2 had to move. I found some short square drink dispensers at Walmart for $15 and they work great for the laundry soap. ( I wanted to test with my Ecos soap before putting my MIL's ALL in one, it worked great though so now the ALL is in one too. I already had gotten 2 glass canisters for my old soap (before I started using Ecos I used powdered Country Save) and baking soda. I re-purposed the CS one for Oxy-Clean and added one for the IRON OUT my MIL uses on occasion. If I would have had time I would have used vinyl and cut out the labels with my Cricut for the powders and the liquid soaps. maybe later. 

I added a few clear glass jars for pretty items, clothes pins (this is a laundry room), extra dryer balls, and one for loose change from pockets. 

cleaning out another closet in the room (no pics sorry, im a bad blogger) I found the laundry bags on the green shelf thing, I will make a box or jar and label for them too. The open box of bounce sheets didnt fit under the little white shelf thing so I found a shallow plastic storage container. I like that it cleans up the visual clutter. 

NOTHING was purged. This wasn't MY space to decide what to get rid of. a few things were relocated, so that this would be mostly just Laundry. I only threw away actual garbage. 

Laundry Day! Day 10

I don't have a laundry room. Our loft is located in the top of a building on my in-law's property. I do laundry in the main house.

I WISH I could re-do that laundry room, (you would love the before picture) but I am certain that would offend and upset my mother-in-law(both the photo on the internet and cleaning it. I have visions of beautifying the space, dusting, decluttering, containerizing and organizing everything. I have considered braving the project when she is out of town as a welcome home surprise. Then I remember when we first lived together and my then-boyfriend said I could have a cabinet in the bathroom, so I organized under the sink, to have space to clear out said cabinet and she was very upset, not at me, at him. She was just offended and said she would have cleaned it out.
So I cannot re-do the laundry area. Only in my dreams.


Instead, I will share with you
My Laundry Routine:
I almost NEVER have piles of laundry, unfolded or folded around my house. Im not saying I keep up with the laundry, Im just saying I usually put it away right away. And I have a decent system for dirty laundry.

I carry a basket down and start/switch the laundry. If there was anything in the dryer, I fold it after starting the next load. If there was something in the washer, I move it to the dryer. Our dryer needs usually 20 extra minutes, and rather than going back up to the loft just to come back down, I waste some time in the house. I play with Annie, go through my mail, read a magazine, talk to the in-laws etc. To keep me in the laundry mood, I usually fold whatever came out of the dryer, or if there are any of my in-law's unfolded clean baskets (this doesnt seem to offend her, she will sometimes take out our laundry and fold it if I dont get to it in time) I put away what I folded if it belongs in the house, normally towels, (my MIL usually gets her clothes out right away to prevent wrinkles) I dont put away their clothes.


After about 15-20 minutes, I add time to the dryer, set an alarm on my phone and go up to the loft. As soon as I walk in, I put away any of my laundry. If Im on my last load, or if I found other things to do for 20 minutes, I will need to fold my laundry first. I DONT SIT ON THE COUCH. If I were to sit on the couch, I would probably fold the basket into piles, and then stay sitting on the couch while the piles sit around. I would lose my momentum and decide to deal with the clothes later. The stacks would get messed up, clothes would get unfolded. Instead, I take the basket directly into the room where it goes (either bathroom or bedroom). When the alarm tells me, I go switch the laundry. Sometimes we have dinner and watch TV with the in-laws on laundry day, so I switch the laundry, but dont have to go back and forth to the apartment, I simply put all the laundry away before bed that night.
In the bathroom:
Clean, unfolded laundry in basket -> folded and placed directly in towel cabinet (socks were also in this load, they got a stack on the counter)->Empty basket! The kitchen towels are also often mixed with the bathroom towels, so I make a stack for them on the bathroom counter too.
Since we roll the bath towels (makes it easy to grab one and supposedly they take up less space), its much easier to put them away after rolling than have a stack of rolled up towels that like to roll over and fall of the stack.

In the bedroom: I open the drawers, shove t-shirts, socks and underwear to the back of the drawer (straightening any that need it), to leave space up front for newly folded items, and leave the drawers partway open. I fold and hang everything, putting each item away as I go, (with the exception of my underthings, which are across the room from the rest of the clothes storage, and hoodies which hang in the coat racks, I make a pile for them on the bed, and put them away as soon as everything is folded and away).

NO PILES ON THE COUCH OR FLOOR OR TABLE!

I don't fold my sheets when I wash them. I just wash them early in the day and leave the bed naked until they're dry and make the bed with them (I get to enjoy that fresh laundry smell better this way). I do have an extra set of sheets in my linen chest, in case something comes up and I cannot finish the laundry, or whatever.


How I store dirty laundry:
I used to have mis-matched tall hampers and short baskets in both the bedroom and bathroom. When we had company over, I would hide a basket of dirty laundry in either the bathtub, the office or the bedroom. That got annoying and didnt look nice when company wasnt coming. So early this month, I had some fun money in my budget (is it sad or awesome that I bought laundry baskets with "fun" money?) and bought 2 hampers that matched one I already had. They have lids and the handles are much easier for carrying down the stairs than any of the others. They're tall, so they don't take up much real estate in my bathroom.

Feeling like I aught to do SOMETHING for Day 10's challenge, I finally made labels for the basket lids. I don't worry about keeping the baskets straight, just the lids, and they stay in the bathroom when I take the laundry down to the house. I went to Avery.com and made labels (I wrote a tutorial here)
A peel and a stick and ta-da:
I also have a hamper in the bedroom, it gets sorted into the bathroom hampers whenever its full, or on laundry day. Another small basket in our bedroom holds the clothes that we have worn but will wear again, usually just jeans, hoodies and bras.

No big awesome transformations, I wish I could give you a glimpse into my brain and all the beautiful ways I would re-do the in-laws laundry room, you would love it.

For some real life awesome Before and Afters, check out DAY 10 at A Bowl Full of Lemons

Clothes drawers~ day 6 of 21 day Organizing Challenge

ahh again I am finding I have a headstart on a challege, that makes me proud of myself.

Day one was supposed to be for Junk Drawers but since I had already organized mine, the touch up was easy, so I moved onto other drawers in the house, underwear drawer included.


We dont have a lot of storage space in our loft, and dont have the desire to own much clothes, so keeping it mostly organized isnt too hard.


I will be showing you my husbands drawers.. (tee hee hee)

I also re-did mine and they look pretty good, I just realized that I failed to take after pics of my
drawers and now hubby is in bed, I might post them later.


Here are some BEFORES:

The top drawer is pj bottoms, socks and boxers. not super straight, but organized. a little crammed, especially because I hadnt washed whites for a while so there are a bunch of socks in the laundry.


the next drawer is for shorts, super crammed full, can barely close it. I purged some more worn out shorts. This was easy to do because ideally hubby will be fitting smaller shorts by the time summer rolls around.


next is tshirts. theyre rolled up so theyre easier to see what they are. (more proof my hubby is a geek, 2 dragon shirts, a warewolf shirt, & 2 tiger shirts. What makes up for the kgeeky shirts is my favorite, it doesnt fit him, but will fit me after Ellie moves out of my belly: Boot Camp for New Dads Tshirt). I didnt do much to this drawer but move the shirts he wears more often to the front. There are a few that are worn out, but I will be saving those for night shirts after the baby is born, or if I leak bm before then.


The pants drawer reminds me I need to do laundry.


Then I see the bottom drawer, the misc drawer has some pants in it... weird, but at least I dont have to do laundry for another day or two tee hee hee... This drawer does have much more potential. The belts were all jumbled, and there is clearly space in the pants drawer for pants.

I went to my pile of boxes bins and containers and found a box for the belts:

rolled them all up, (getting rid of one that i dont think i have ever worn, doesnt go with much of what i wear and is too wide for average belt loops) I wrapped a rubber band around the belts and put them in the blue box: This freed up space to give those socks from the top drawer some breathing room. The uber warm socks and dress socks relocated. Also when I did my bedside drawer re-do, I didnt take in to consideration that I hadnt washed whites in a while or that my bras were all still hanging from when I did laundry last or dirty, so the shoe box of accessories needed to move out of my underwear drawer and into this drawer.


Also, I swapped the shorts drawer for the pants drawer since it is winter time.

So now some AFTERS:

I did do this challenge on day 6, I just havent felt like blogging it, so I promise I am keeping up with the daily stuff (although I havent done the pantry yet) just not the blogging part.

speaking for clothing and laundry...

I got ALL (besides 1/2 a load of towels, and today's clothes) WASHED FOLDED & PUT AWAY today(Saturday) + a load of blankets. YAY!!! SO nice to have that done. I dont do laundry on a daily basis because I (by "I" I mean the Hubby) have to carry the baskets down my apartment deck stairs across the lawn and into the in-law's house, because we dont have W/D hookup. I can carry a basket if its only like 1 load, but if its overstuffed, it gets heavy and some days, it wears me out. I usually forget about the laundry after starting a load then my wonderful mil will end up finishing it for me when she does her laundry. I dont like leaving it for her to do, so I try to do laundry all day long, setting myself a timer to go down and switch it over, which I was succcessful at doing today. I was feeling pretty good today, only really needed to take a break after lunch, but I did that after switching the laundry rather than putting it off.

It is too easy for me to leave clean laundry in hampers to deal with later once its washed, but I have been making myself fold and put away the laundry when I bring it upstairs. The new habit is great. I love that I can put the empty hampers back in the bathroom to be filled (sorted) instead of having a pile of dirty laundry on the floor and have to have the extra effort of picking it all up and sorting it once I empty the baskets.

We have 3 matching, lidded hampers in the bathroom (is it pathetic or awesome that those were what I spent my "fun" money on this month?), (I love how big my bathroom is!) one for lights, towels and darks. We also have a hamper in our bedroom, and when its full, or when I feel like it, I take it into the bathroom to sort. Under the sink is another mini-hamper for kitchen laundry which gets added to the towel hamper when its full. We also have a short basket in the bedroom for clothes we will wear again, like my maternity pants, hubby's pants, hoodies, bras, we wear them a few times before washing them. This cuts down on laundry a lot.

Im linking to Day 6 at A Bowl Full of Lemons