Let's talk dirty .... dirty clothes that is!

Good morning y'all!

As with many military families, we move from one rental to another, and each rental brings its own challenges. Will your furniture fit? What to do when you don't have built in closets? Those challenges then become an opportunity to get creative, and do we get creative sometimes! We're currently in a split level duplex, and with split level I mean almost EVERY ROOM is on its own level. There are winding stairs in the center of the house that go over 7 levels, SEVEN! This house has become my daily workout. If you're a mom, you can probably imagine how many times I run up and down these stairs!

We're blessed with great size rooms. One is our basement/laundry room that came complete with a half bath and floor heating, so we turned it into a play room/laundry room. But that too came with some design challenges. As you might guess, a family of 5 produces quite the amount of laundry. Creating defined spaces for laundry and the play area without it looking cluttered was interesting. We had a good setup but dirty clothes kept piling up, especially towards the end of the week and well, it drove me crazy. If I had unlimited funds, I'd organize all the things in one day. But I don't, or lets just say someone won't give me unlimited funds, haha. It basically goes back to us being in a rental. We don't know if whatever solution I come up with works in the next home, so anything I do has to be budget friendly. All while looking decent.

This type of laundry basket storage is what I had in mind:

source: http://thebullock5.blogspot.de/2012/01/my-diy-wooden-drawer-organizer.html

I've pinned the plans from Ana White, whose plans I also used for our farmhouse table. However, my schedule has been too crazy, and my list of projects is too long to make this come to life any time soon. But the current situation was driving me batty, so a quick, easy and budget friendly solution had to be found ASAP! Walking through OBI, a German version of Home Depot, looking for new shower heads, I came across these utility shelves for Euro 7.99. I grabbed a laundry basket from the next aisle to check the fit, and my cheap laundry makeover was born. I grabbed 3 of them and had the staff cut a piece of white particle wood in two to cover the top and create a folding area. I already had screws and connectors so all the material cost me less than Euro 38! I already had laundry baskets, if you need some, IKEA has these for Euro 2.49.

I set the shelves up in a L-shape, kind of framing the laundry area and separating it from the play area. They're now sitting against 3 Billy bookcases.

With the new setup came a new sorting system. My husband has been taking over laundry duty, which is very sweet, but you could tell he was a little overwhelmed. When we were in Minot, I had a laundry day. After each load was dry, I folded each person's clothes and put them in their own laundry basket. That's the system he was using too. My schedule no longer allows for one entire laundry day and we've since added to the family so there's more laundry. Our laundry sorter with 3 mesh bags was no longer cutting it. So there were piles of clothes in front of it, baskets with folded clothes, baskets with dry but unfolded clothes. It was a mess. And it drove me nuts. Did I mention already that it drove me insane?

Enter new system! I've labeled each section according to which clothes go in which basket. Whites, lights, brights, dark, linens and delicates. Depending on how you sort, you may want to make changes. The kids were playing with the 6th laundry basket, hence one missing in the picture. Every day, we grab the laundry from the hampers and sort it in the according baskets. Once one is full, it's time to wash. No more 8 loads at once. No more piles. No more mom going crazy!

Here's the laundry area from a different angle. I now have way more space! And a bigger folding area too. I probably should've taken a before picture.... The 31 gifts tote is for dirty shoes etc. As you can see, I also have room for a big drying rack. I like to hang things to dry as much as I can to save electricity and be environmentally friendly. But sometimes you have clothes that can't be dried, think LuLaRoe for example. You know who you are! ;) That's also where my ironing board is stored. There are outlets right by the shelves so I can iron right there in the laundry area. Before they were covered so we had to set up the ironing board by the door, always being in the way.

Before, the top of the washer/dryer/freezer was the only space to fold. Not enough for a family of 5! The tub is for clothes that need to be pre-treated and soaked. That small trash can next to it is for dryer lint and any trash I may find in pockets. I'm going to add a lazy Susan to hold the laundry detergent and a jar for change I may find in pockets, or that dreaded pen that hides in my husband's uniform!

We also had 2 round laundry baskets. One my husband bought before our household goods came here and one was gifted to us when we had Baby A. So I use them to collect the laundry and for the folded clothes, since it's usually just one load. So that's it. Nothing magical. Nothing super cute and shabby chic that makes you go Ooooo and Aaaaaa about it. For now. For now it's just going to be functional without looking hideous. So far it's worked well. I have one load every other day, sometimes two. Totally doable and it never looks a mess!

Thanks for reading! Now launder on!