The Problem
I enjoy doing laundry. However, I don’t enjoy the clean piles it can create on my couch and main floor when I have a few loads to sort. We have four people in our family, including two young children that easily get dirty clothes on the daily.
Our mudroom is also our laundry room and has an entrance from the garage. This is a high traffic area that doesn’t have tons of room but enough for what we use it for.
The Solution
After searching through beautiful photos in Pinterest for a while, I was inspired by a few laundry rooms that had built in shelving for laundry baskets. I wanted to create an area where I could stack 4-5 laundry baskets to hold each family member’s clean clothes, so I no longer had piles in my living room or multiple laundry baskets on the floor.
Now, I need to give a huge shout out to my husband, Chris, for being so handy that he can whip up a schematic drawing of custom built shelves at the drop of a hat and follow through to build them. It also helps that my father in-law, aka Grandpa Gerry, has a fully equipped workroom in his home that Chris can use when needed. (Thanks Gerry!)
Project Time
After a quick trip to Home Depot, we loaded some MDF boards into our van and the building began. We added white paint to finish the look and by the next morning our laundry situation was solved! Chris built shelves that hold 5 laundry baskets and added shoe cubbies above. I did a few loads of laundry today and I was so happy to easily and very quickly sort everyone’s laundry into their own basket which is nicely tucked away in the closet. The plan is to have this spot as our holding area and when each person is ready to put their clothes away, they take it up to their bedroom then bring the empty basket back down. Our kids are still pretty young (5 and 3) so I still help them with their laundry but they’re learning the skills to do it themselves in the process.
Hopefully this will provide some inspiration to anyone that is struggling with the constant piles of clean laundry in their living room like we were. I cannot express how happy it makes me to walk through our laundry room/mudroom now because it is so neat and tidy. Everything has its place now that we have created our laundry storage station.
Happy sorting!
Jillian
