Operation Organization: Laundry Room

After a week of being exceptionally tired and lazy, yesterday I was hit with an urge to clean and organize. I got two new rooms finished, finished up cleaning our bathroom (floors still needed to be done) AND we changed out our air filters and vacuumed out the bathroom vents. John helped me a lot on this evening, and I was grateful for his involvement!

As I mentioned in the video, there were several "selling points" with this house when we bought it 5 years ago. The laundry room was one of them. Huge, spacious, lots of storage. It's a lot like a mudroom because it's connected to the garage, where we always come in. Our coats are hung here (I didn't get a picture of the coat rack on the wall to the right).

But because it's also a mud room, it's where most of our 'stuff' ends up. Papers from the day, mail, odds and ends, shoes, etc. It is a constant mess. It also houses the only junk drawer in the house...and it's pretty junky. I was both looking forward to cleaning/organizing, also dreading it.



Ugh. Yes. This is typically what it looks like. And clothes are covering up so much of the other mess. Paperwork was everywhere...

THE JUNK DRAWER. Can't find anything in here.

The cabinet above the junk drawer was a mess of cords, checks, and junk. The top shelf was mostly jars and candles, but still needed some work.

This is the game cabinet under the junk drawer.

And, after! Aaaahhhh....nice and clean. Clear. Under control.

The junk drawer. Still a junk drawer, but makes a little more sense. Our small electronics and checks come with such good little boxes. Perfect for organizing the small things like keys, batteries, iphone/pod accessories, and small tools. I know it will get junky again, but I hope to continue to have "places" for things to go.



The upper cabinet is now organized! The top shelf really didn't have much to be cleaned. All my tealights live in Mason jars that are used for various things. Also up top are now small decorations and ornaments that didn't get put away before Christmas decorations went back in the attic. The bottom shelf now has the huge, awkward firesafe, Bibles, and checks/envelopes. Thinking I might start a bill-paying area at some point...

 

I didn't take a before pic of under the sink cabinet, but it was full of diaper boxes that had bills/junk mail that need to be shredded. My next project is to actually separate the trash from the paper that has personal info and get it shredded so I removed all those boxes. Now, an old laptop box holds all our warranties/manuals, all our flashlights are in one box, and a few other things with no real home ended up here.

 

Here is the game cabinet, now a true game cabinet! You  can see them all, and on the bottom is a bag of CD's, a CD player, and a humidifier. I KNOW I should get rid of the CDs, especially since we have everything digitally now. I'll get there. Doesn't it look better?! Also, I got rid of those World War II VHS tapes...where did those come from?! Why were we keeping them?!


I did not take pictures of the cabinets above the washer and dryer. One is just our laundry supplies. The other is full of ironing supplies, picture albums and boxes of pictures. It's organized, I assure you. So that's the laundry room transformation... 2 1/2 bags of trash later.