Mission Organization: The Laundry Room

I have been on this mad re-organizing and furniture re-arranging frenzy for a week. It was all brought on by the patio. I know that does not make sense but I will explain that project soon.

Today I give you the laundry room.

I have a few issues with my laundry room.

1. It is small. The door to the laundry room was huge and swung in, so pretty much I had to go in and shut the door to use the space effectively. When we first moved in I found the original house plans on top of a cabinet. The original plans had a pocket door in the laundry room. Hello? That would have been ideal. I bet a man changed that detail. Anyway I ended up just taking the door off.

2. The other issue I have is that, it is the cat's domain. Litter box and food. And it has become their sanctuary. You know, a place they can escape from....
...the naughty pup who lives for pestering them.

So Jingles,
stays on top of the dryer, in the pink prissy dog bed I bought for princess pup who incidentally decided that human, not doggie, beds were more her style. It is OK though because Jingles is secure enough in his manhood to sleep in a pink bed.

I put up a doggie~gate to separate the canine and feline population.
Val, the diabetic cat, is not intimidated by Missy. In fact here he is waiting for a chance to pounce on her and open a can of whoop ass!

So add that all together and you have a laundry room with no door, that is across the hall from the guest half bath and in the main traffic hall from the garage to kitchen. Which means you have a potentially smelly, messy, cat hair covered laundry room which is open to any guest walking by!

I have to add that I am paranoid about my house smelling. I religiously keep the kitty litter emptied and have a yummy Bath and Body Works plug in thingy in "Fresh Linen" in the laundry room.

And the other problem is that it becomes the dumping ground for everything that does not have a home. So the counter top was always full of various things that did not necessarily belong there.

Now I don't mean to gripe. In fact I consider it a blessing to have a laundry room. I mean some houses don't, right? The pros are that it has good cabinet space, a window, rods to hang clothes and a sink.

I decided that organizing the cabinets would be a great start to having a laundry room that I could stomach.

I am not OCD about cabinet organization, but unless every thing has a "place" then stuff just gets stashed in a cabinet, without any rhyme or reason, and THEN it turns into a total waste of space. Right?

Here we go with cabinet #1Light bulbs all willy nilly on the top shelf and stuff thrown in. TOTAL waste of space.

A little organizing and label making later and.......hello lots more storage room! If you don't have a label maker, you are missing out. Honestly, that thing brings me great joy.

Cabinet #2 over the washing machine......seriously, that is ridiculous. First of all putting all the old towels on the top shelf was a poor plan. Pull one out to dry the dog off with and they all fall down on my head.

Now it is full of all cleaning supplies!All together in ONE cabinet. Revolutionary I tell you.


Cabinet #3 under the counter......perfect example of how unorganized equals wasted space. That cabinet is very deep with tons of available space. There also is my bag of rags and old t-shirts (6,000 of them) waiting to be cut into rags all stuffed in there.

Waaa-laaa........in my fit of productivity I now have a basket of rags and all the old towels stashed and ready for those messy cleanups! Wooo Hooo! Look, even Val the diabetic is checking it out.


Clutter...
No clutter...Behind the curtains is the "kitty loo" if you will. I took those cabinet doors off...it seems to be a specialty of mine. Do you need any doors removed at your house?


Cluttered again....
Now a calm kitty resting spot...I also cleaned out the junk drawer in there. It is just too amazing for me to show you a picture. It would hurt your eyes it is sooo organized. I threw away all the mystery parts that accumulate in there. I bought some new screw drivers and a pair of pliers and put them in a cute little drawer organizer. I don't know about your house, but we can NEVER find a screwdriver when we need it. I rectified that little dilemma. And threatened hubs that these tools were not to leave the house!

Once the kitties are gone (I mean I love them and all, but...) and I reclaim the laundry room as my own, then it will look like this.