Organizing Your Home: the laundry

So far in this series, we've talked about organizing your pantry, refrigerator, freezer, kitchen and bathroom. Like I've said before, keeping your home organized does take time and work - but I believe it's so worth the effort! Your home will be much easier to manage when it's organized.

In this final segment, let's focus on your laundry area. You may be fortunate enough to have an actual laundry "room" - and for that, I am slightly envious! Others of you (myself included) may only have a closet. Our washer and dryer are in a closet off the hallway, just outside both bedrooms. Whatever space you have for laundry - let's talk about a few tips for keeping it organized.

My laundry closet

Utilize the shelving in your laundry area. We have one large built-in shelf above our washer and dryer. I keep a number of items on the shelf (note that not all are laundry-related!):

• Extra detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, and stain remover.
• Iron...which I {ahem} rarely never use! (OK, well, maybe I've used it about five times in three years...) You can also see that we've stuck the ironing board on the side of the dryer.
• Sewing basket.
• A cooler...it landed there when we moved and that became it's home.

Get creative when it comes to drying clothes! I use our dryer for most items - I don't air dry much. But, there are some items that must be air-dryed, and in our new condo, I've had to get creative since we don't have a patio (plus it's very cold here for about six months of the year!).

I use a wooden drying rack in the second bathroom for most of my air drying. It fits perfectly in the tub! I also hang an extra tension shower rod across the tub and can air dry laundry on that. That works nicely for items that are still dripping wet.

I also recommend storing your laundry baskets in inconspicuous places. I keep one of our laundry baskets in the corner of our room. There's also one on top of the dryer. We have a third laundry basket that we don't use currently and that hides in our walk-in closet.