{Homecomings & Organizing a Laundry Room. Day 2}

Day two of "31 Days to Lovely Little Spaces" is about homecomings. 

Our family comes and goes through the garage. The room immediately accessed from this entrance is a combination mudroom/laundry room. And it is S.M.A.L.L., which means we need to be really well organized in here.
 

Bela's weather chart is on the door.
I love that the steel door is magnetic!

I placed a bench next to the door and there are some coat hooks hanging above the bench. Unfortunately this makes it nearly impossible to actually sit down to tie your shoes. I also use these hooks to hang our shirts and other laundry that goes on hangers, taking up a lot of valuable space that could be used by hoodies and backpacks. Boo!

On the other hand, the bench is a great place to set things down. Before I moved the bench out here, people put their things on top of the washer & dryer, which drove me nuts! It's hard enough to get clothes sorted and folded without having to maneuver around library books, bottled waters, and treasured stones... Not to mention, the kids would accidentally push the buttons on the front loaders as they set their stuff on top, turning the machines on with nothing inside. Minor irritants, for sure, but I wanted to avoid them to keep our home happy.

The bench is also great for storing shoes underneath and out of the way. The walkway through this area is quite narrow. Shoes that are out of place are tripping hazards. Another-- unseen--perk of the bench is that the lid lifts up for storage. I keep mittens, hats, gloves, and other outer wear inside.

The bottom drawings were done by Griffin and
Bela did the ones on top.

My plan is to move the coat hooks over to this wall, which is between the door to the garage (on the right) and the door to the rest of the house (out of view on the left). The kids' art would have to be moved up, easily accommodated by cathedral ceilings. When you can't move out, move up! 

The laundry room is really too small for a full-size ironing board so I've moved that out. When something needs to be touched up with an iron, I do it on a quilt on top of the dryer. Eventually, I plan to add some sort of counter to connect the two machines but for now this solution works well enough. 

We LOVE flip flops!!!

The far wall (above the hamper and garbage can) is where I'll add two hooks for hanging our laundry. Without a good routine in place for getting through the wash and putting away shoes, this is what the room would look like. And we would be in some serious trouble! Luckily, it doesn't usually look like this. 

Yes, that's Holy water. No, I am not worried about a vampire invasion.

Above the washing machine and dryer is a shelf and two cupboards (which you can just barely see in this photo). I use the shelf to hold extra cleaners such as bleach, Woolite, and spray wash, and I use the edge of the shelf to hold hangers. Since there is no lip on the shelf, this is a not-so-great solution. There is always a chance the hangers are going to fall down behind the machines. 

The washer and dryer are front loaders, which I LOVE. My wonderful parents bought them for me three years ago as a housewarming gift (an incredibly generous one!!) because I was going to be living on my own with two young children, and they knew how important it is to be able to easily do laundry.

I am so grateful to them for the gift, yet getting the wash done is something I still often struggle with.

Both kids did the handprint poem in kindergarten.
It makes me tear up to read it.

To make the space more enjoyable, I turned the large wall across from the washer & dryer into a gallery for Griffin and Bela's art work. It is definitely more cheerful now! 

Other things I still want to do in this space:

1.) Paint!
2.) Hang a cute window treatment.
3.) Frame the hose cut-out in the wall behind the machines.
4.) Switch out the boring light fixtures.
5.) Move the coat hooks.
6.) Create a lip on the shelf.
7.) Add a counter to the top of the washer & dryer.
8.) Organize my cabinets and linen closet. 

Transforming the linen closet from this blurry mess into something highly functioning is on my list for this week. 

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