Laundry Room Challenge

I love a challenge: and this is it!

My laundry room, last week.

It's come a long way since just last year:

basement: pantry and freezer area to the left, laundry room to the right.

But since we put up the wall panelling last fall, we haven't done much else except insulate the mudsills (That area right up under the rafters, ours are all pink or blue styrofoam--whatever the previous homeowners left for us.)

I've not had proper light, nor tidy storage for months! Not surprisingly, I was struggling to keep up with the laundry.

So, in honour of Home Storage Solutions laundry room challenge, I decided to take mine on.

messy supplies

As the article points out, there are several sub-functions to doing the laundry. The author helpfully listed them:

•  Space for major appliances of washer and dryer (fortunately, check)
•  Storage for laundry supplies (a mess, above)
•  Area for pre-treating and soaking items, for stain removal (nonexistent)
•  Drying area (for those clothes or other items that don't go in the dryer) (nonexistent)
•  Laundry folding; (check) and
•  Ironing  (check; upstairs)

As I don't have a laundry sink, pre-treating and soaking items in the laundry room is a challenge. Currently, I hand wash things in a dish pan upstairs in the bath tub. (Not good for my back, really.)


I did stack two dishpans on the table next to the washer to hold my cleaning cloths which I bleach--and I guess I could put items treated with stain remover in them too--if I ever thought to treat them more than five seconds before they go in the washing machine!

I used to have a long cord suspended from the rafters for drying clothes. I hated it. It was just a clutter catcher and everything on it just got in my way. I really, really wanted to buy something like this:

(PORTIS from IKEA)

It isn't even all that expensive! But, as ever, in the interests of frugality, I decided to see what I already had on hand: and so I invented my own.

Essentially, it's three (cheap) towel racks mounted onto two boards with shelf supports.

Here it is on the wall:

It kind of reminds me of the Starship: Enterprise.

I cleaned up the mess of laundry supplies:

Bottles of fabric softener, a box of powdered chlorine bleach and several spray bottles of stain removers whose nozzles were missing or broken--all of it stuff I don't use--as you can tell by the build up of dust and dirt on them.

I called up my mom and asked her if she wanted them--and she came and took it all away. Hooray!

I put up shelves to hold what was left. Yes, these too were "on hand" --the shelf brackets used to be in the bathroom and the shelves in the kitchen.

When I tracked down the light to put it up, hubby and I discovered that the switch was broken. I ran to Home Despot and found a new switch for $6.98.

So, the laundry room is now pleasant and functional once again.

At the beginning of this transformation last fall, I posted this inspiration photo from chez larsson. Then I sort of forgot about it.

from chez larrson

Cool beans.