Tips for Laundry Room Organizing

For those of you looking for tips on keeping your laundry room organized, be sure to pick the July 2008 "Atlanta Home Improvement" magazine. In it, you'll find tips that I shared with writer Julie Edwards for her piece titled, "Laundry Room Redo: Tips for a Functional and Stylish Space." You can find this free publication at area Whole Foods grocery stores and Ace Hardware, among other places. I normally pick my copy up at my favorite household consignment store, Finders Keepers, in Avondale Estates.

Here are a few laundry room organizing tips that I shared with Julie:

• Keep laundry supplies that you use most often, such as detergent, fabric softener, and anti-static sheets on the more accessible lower shelves.

• Store seldom used items on the higher shelves. I often recommend to my organizing clients that they use the higher shelves in the laundry room to store larger serving pieces or party supplies. Be sure to keep a small folding step stool nearby or you're likely to forget what is stored up there!

• If you have wire shelving installed in your laundry room (the favorite affordable solution amongst contractors, it seems), consider using a product called The Shelfanator to cover the shelves. The Shelfanator is easy to install and covers up wire shelving giving the space a smooth surface. Too often, the combination of moisture and soap products in the laundry room creates a sticky film over traditional wire shelves. The Shelfanator's smooth surface makes the shelves easier to keep clean and helps prevent items from tipping over or falling through the
  

• Liven up the laundry room with bright paint on the walls or with one of the new colorful washer and dryer options like this one.
  

• Create a hanging area for clothes that need to air dry. If space is an issue, a folding drying rack or retractable interior clothesline may be perfect solutions.
  

• If you have children, consider installing a lower hanging rod so that your kids can help with laundry and begin learning how to take care of their clothes.
  

• Keep a small wastebasket in the laundry area for disposing of dryer sheets, dryer lint, and all those tissues and tiny pieces of paper that you pull out of pants pockets, hopefully BEFORE washing them.
  

One of my favorite trends that I'm seeing in new homes is having laundry rooms closer to the master bedroom. In a few cases, I've even seen them situated in closets inside the master bath. It's so much more convenient to get the clothes from the laundry hamper to the washer and back into closets when you don't have to trek all the way to the basement or mudroom, don't you think?