Spring Cleaning: Laundry Room

The last room we are going to organize in this series is the laundry room.  I organized and redecorated my laundry room at the end of last year, so I am not going to have any before pictures unfortunately.   

There are so many great organizational items for the laundry room these days.  I'm going to show you a few of my favorites.

The white accordion clothes hanger you can get at Bed, Bath and Beyond or the Container Store.  I love that it folds flat against the wall when I'm not using it.  I hand alot of Brian's cycling clothes I don't want to dry in the dryer.  The coat hook I use for items that need to be repaired or ironed. Tip 1: Use your wall space.



The ironing board and iron wall organizer I have had for years.  It's great, except I had to buy a new iron and my new iron is too big for the holder.  :(  I also have a space under the sink where I can store things if need be.  I added the skirt (a table cloth from Target) to add some color and hide anything I wanted to put underneath it.

This cart fits perfectly in between my washer and dryer.  I love it.  You can find it at Bed, Bath and Beyond as well.  It's on wheels so it's easy to move.  Once again you can see my love for glass containers.  I have all of my soap in see through containers so I know when I am running low. Tip 2: Put all of your detergent and other cleaning supplies in glass or plastic containers.

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One last tip and it's an important one.  Make sure you clean out your lint trap every time you
dry a load of clothes.  Once a year I pull the dryer out and clean the hose out at the back of the dryer.  If you never clean it out, you are at risk of a fire starting.  I've been thinking about getting a Lint Lizard to help me with this task.  Do any of you own one of these?  If you do, please let me know how you like it.  It's also available at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I believe a laundry room can be pretty and functional.  Let's face it, you spend alot of time washing clothes, you might as well enjoy it.

You have one more day to enter to win the Simple Human automatic soap dispenser.

Don't forget to check out Broccoli Cupcake's blog for her homemade detergents and other green solutions for the laundry room.

Spring Cleaning:Organizing your Bathroom

We are half way through our series and today we are going to take on the master bathroom, but this will work in any and all of your bathrooms.  Here are the supplies you will need.

In our bathroom there are two narrow closets.  They are kind of a waste of space, but they are there so junk starts to pile up.  This is my closet in the bathroom.

And this is Brian's closet.

Then I tackled the drawers and the space under the sink.

I then brought everything out into our bedroom and laid it on the floor.

Step 1: Look through your medications, make up, etc for expiration dates.  I had quite a bit of stuff that had expired and needed to be thrown out.  Remember don't flush meds down the toilet.  They get into our waterways and pollute the water.  You can take them into most pharmacies and they will dispose of them for you.

Step 2: Put like items in their own bins.  I already had bins, but if you are starting from scratch you will need to make a list of the bins, along with their sizes, on the pad of paper I showed you at the top.

Step 3: Label the bins.  You can use a label maker if you have one or purchase stick on labels if you prefer.

Step 4: Now is a great time to go through your towels and see which ones need to be retired.  If they are still in good shape, you can donate them to a local homeless shelter.

After Photos:

I have a bin for cold meds, first aid, travel size items and dental supplies.  The travel size container is a new one for me, but I think it's going to come in handy.  It will save me a ton of time not having to run to the store the night before a trip for something I need.

I like to stock up on shampoo and conditioner when it's on sale.

I ended up with 2 grocery bags of trash and recycling and a small box of items to donate.  I bought Qtips and toothpaste in bulk at Costco so I decided to donate some of them to our local homeless shelter.  I mean who really needs 600 Qtips anyway.

I have no idea why a Nintendo DS was in our bathroom closet. Ha.  I guess you never know what may turn up.  This obviously needed to go elsewhere in the house.

GIVE AWAY ALERT:  I'm excited to announce that the great folks from Simple Human have agreed to give away one of their sensor pumps.  You may have seen my trashcan in yesterday's post of my pantry.  I love Simple Human products. 

 I was given this sensor pump at Blissdom this year and I absolutely love it.  We use it in our main bathroom and it rocks.  I had a glass soap dispenser that I loved, but it always got clogged.  It was awful.  Soap would be all over the sink and the girls would have trouble getting the soap out.  I brought this pump home and the girls love washing their hands now.

You have 3 chances to win.
1. Go like simplehuman on Facebook.
2. Follow @simplehuman on Twitter
3. Leave a comment on my blog as to where you would use the sensor pump if you won.

I will pick a winner at random on Saturday.  Good luck!

Don't forget to check out Calie's blog to see her green cleaning products and how she used them to get her bathroom sparkling clean.  I know I can't wait to try some of her recipes.