Make your laundry area a fun place, use color blocking to make it interesting, organized by having an assigned place for everything making it functional and efficient.
Usually the laundry room is a small room, I always recommend that you pick a fun color and either put it on the wall, inside cabinets or if you have open shelves then use color in the accessories like colorful baskets/bins. In your folding area, put some of your favorite color paintings, or decorative plates, a chalkboard to write things to do.
Where do you begin? Start off by removing the APE in your laundry room (Analyze, Plan & Execute) When analyzing the room ask yourself: what works and what does not, how do you want to use the room, identify the zones in the room (Washing Station, Drying Station, Ironing Station, Soaking station, Mending…) By the way, if you have pets, setup a Pet Station near the sink.
Now let’s execute: Use the Acronym SPACE, (SPACE: Sort, Purge, Assign, Containerize, Equalize) Remove everything from the room to Sort and Purge. This process helps de-clutter the space before setting up your new zones.
Zones are now selected and labeled. You can begin to return all items to their new assigned home. Be sure that they are also accessible to you and not difficult to reach–especially frequently used items. Once items have a new home than you can containerize. Get color bins that go with the color blocking.
In your folding and ironing zone, be sure to set up a hanging rod (a tension rod can also be used) for items to drip dry or when ironing to place them temporarily or a retractable clothes line.
- Tip: If space is limited for folding, install a wall mounted folding table that can be folded down when not in use.
This is also a great place to have a sewing machine near, how often do you iron something that has become un-stitched and you have to wait to find your machine and then set-it up and begin fixing. For some taking several steps deters them from getting it done.
- Tip: Make it fun by using color labels for the zoned areas. Yellow Labels for Ironing zone, Red for Washing/Wet zones, Blue for …..Same could be done with color bins.
Color coding is a fun and an easy way for the kids to identify where things go when you ask them to put things away.
Finally, maintaining any room is easy when everything has a home. On a weekly basis take inventory of what supplies are low or need replacing. Then once a week, take 10 minutes and see if anything was left in the soaking tub, orphan socks or clothing that need to be returned and a quick wipe down of appliances.
That’s it! Enjoy our new organized laundry room.
