Laundry Room – check!

The biggest weight on my shoulder currently is the organization in our house.  We bought our house last July.  While we have definitely made the house our home, we kind of just threw all of our “stuff” into whatever storage area was closest when we moved in. We wanted it out-of-the-way. Now it has all caught up with us.  Our garage, shed, laundry room, and storage closets are spilling over. Stuff is everywhere.  Holiday stuff is here and there. Camping stuff is stuck in every corner. All the other areas are filled with bikes, winter coats, wrapping paper, suitcases, bikes, yard stuff, tools, and lots of junk!  It’s become difficult to walk through the garage or laundry room.

Since it was raining all morning, I took advantage of the gray skies.  I organized the laundry room! I pulled everything out and started with a clean slate.  Christian hung 4 shelves for me a few months ago.  All I had to do was a find a home for everything and determine what would be kept in the laundry room.  Since our laundry leads to our garage, it’s also a mudroom of sorts.  We keep a lot of our coats and winter gear in there.  The shelves are also now a place for us to store overflow kitchen items, school project supplies, laundry supplies, and dog stuff.

Below are the before and after photos.  While they don’t look too dramatic in the photos, it is a HUGE difference. The biggest impact is that the doors leading the living room and garage can open completely.  No more sideways walking between the rooms!

In the first “after” photo, we ditched the oversized Chi-Chi’s shelves (got to love a husband who sells liquor and gets tons of free crap!). In its placed, we moved in our old kitchen cart.  We desperately needed a place to keep our winter attire. We have A LOT. It was all previous store in my laundry basket in the middle of the garage. The cart now holds it all. Top shelf – hats. Middle shelf – gloves. Bottom shelf – scarves.  I love winter stuff!!! The top basket is for our everyday activity equipment – running and biking stuff.  The jackets are all still up on the hooks, but they will be slowly making their way to an upstairs storage closet.  I will also be adding a stand-up wrapping paper container to that area once I can find one. Who knew that it would be a hard item to locate?

In the second “after” photo, I organized the four shelves.  All I had to buy was 3 containers (5.99 each at bed, bath & beyond).  The top shelf is our “party” shelf.  It’s all the goodies for my annual taco night to benefit the American Cancer Society. The 2nd shelf has some random things from Alex’s leashes in a basket to extra wall hooks to fire logs.  The 3rd shelf is all about school projects. The 4th shelf is for kitchen over flow.  (Christian – please reference this blog when putting things away! Everything has a home! Let’s keep it that way!)

Yay for an organized and clean laundry room – I even scrubbed the floor! Yay for already checking an item off my 40 day list! Yay for being one step closer to prepping Maute Moo’s nursery!  Need an instant pick-me-up? Organize a room in your house! It feels pretty darn good!