Struggling to organize your small laundry room? Today I’ve got some practical small laundry room organization ideas to help you make the most out of the space you have.
Perhaps your laundry room is really just a glorified closet with a washer and dryer. Arguably the least liked room in many homes the laundry room is a prime dumping ground for all the stuff you don’t know where else to put.
Laundry rooms have a tendency to be cramped and let’s face it – smelly. It’s a room for getting things clean, not just a holding space for the dirty and stinky stuff.
I know it’s my least favorite room to organize and clean, it just seems to have a low payoff in organizing satisfaction. Nevertheless, it’s certainly much more pleasant and efficient to clean the space and our clothes when whatever square footage you have for doing laundry is thoughtfully planned out and organized to make the job easier.
I suggest just quietly standing in the space for a few minutes, ie. meditate on your laundry room for a moment (I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s a crucial step in any organizing process). For a fresh perspective look around with an eye for wasted space. There are so many organizing tools that you can harness to make better use of this otherwise wasted space.
Pay particular attention to the hard to reach areas of the room. These dark hole spaces can be overlooked just because of the impracticality of reaching into the area without being a contortionist or hurting yourself.
You may be able to relocate your washer and dryer by a couple of feet, or even inches to open up some more readily usable storage bin space or use it to store bulky items that you don’t use every day.
My Top Small Laundry Room Organization Ideas
Go Vertical
If you’ve got a really tiny laundry room or even just a laundry closet you may think that you don’t have any options. But if you’ve got wall space you may very well have the room to organize vertically. You may have shelves right above the washer and dryer that aren’t doing you much good or could be used more wisely by utilizing the hanging space underneath.
Make use of Different Containers & Dispensers
Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to change out a container when your space is limited, but if you have a small shelf area to take advantage of you may be better off filling a smaller container to hold your laundry detergent and keeping the large container stored on the floor, in a harder to reach space and less usable space, or completely out of the way in a garage or closet.
I don’t like filling my limited shelf space with the large economy size containers of detergents, softeners, and additives. Instead I use smaller space saving, easier to handle containers and fill them up as needed.
Collapsible Laundry Baskets Have So Many Uses
Soft sided vertical or horizontal collapsible laundry baskets are not traditionally used for stacking but they’re actually great for sorting types of laundry and separating the unwashed from clean, wet from dry.
Even with a dedicated laundry room we simply don’t have the floor or shelf space for a bunch of laundry baskets that are constantly coming and going.
Without stacking the collapsible mesh laundry baskets we wouldn’t have enough space to handle laundry for different family members by lights, darks, just out of the washer waiting to go into the dryer or to be hung, and/or freshly out of the dryer and ready to be put away. But we can easily stack the collapsible laundry baskets with the different stages and needs per family member, keeping an otherwise unruly mess under control.
Explore the Many Uses of S-Hooks & L-Brackets
If you’ve got a wire shelving unit in your laundry room there’s usually some usable space underneath it. It would be great if there’s room for hangers AND the clothes that hang on them but there’s often not. You can solve this with a few organizing tricks.
Did you know they make vertically hanging wire shelves that probably match the one you already have? There’s no mounting hardware that requires drilling or nails, it just attaches to the shelf above with a hanging hook. It’s a pretty ingenious and underutilized system.
Along the same vein are S hooks and L brackets found in the hardware department and useful for hanging tools and dodads, holding extra hangers, bags with drawstrings, etc.
Well those are my top small laundry room organization ideas. I realize they may be a bit confusing without visuals so I’ve included a fun (yes, for the subject matter it really is) video that should help you with organizing your own small laundry space, particularly if you’re on a budget or just love shopping at a dollar store.
