The post about the junkless laundry room

Yesterday, Blogger was refusing to upload photos. Today? No problem.

We spend a great deal of time this weekend going through STUFF. In our defense, it was stuff that wasn't junk. It was useful stuff. But you reach a point where you have too much useful stuff that it is no longer useful.

Take for example, one of our large bins. It was full of electronic gadgets, cords and wires. How many cable cords does a couple need?! One, not ten. You get the picture.

So, we weeded and waded. Or, rather, I weeded and waded as B cleaned the rest of the house. End result? A clean house and a laundry room that is clean too. The laundry room is significantly better now that it has an ENTIRE BACK SEAT OF MY CAR's worth of full trash bags hauled out of it. Some of the benefits:

The storage rack now has a shelf and a half of free space. I'm including "free" as where the towels are, since that's just a temporary assignment. :) We're thinking of moving the crock pot, blender, and a few other kitchen items out here, since we don't use those items every day. Space and organization. Yes, and I put a piece of fabric up to cover the window. It's just better not to advertise the room's contents.

Not only are all the bins organized above the washer/dryer, but I HAVE A FREE BIN!!! I think I'm going to put summer clothes in it... which will then mean room in all the winter clothes bins. We also assigned one bin to Holiday presents, something I LOVE since there have been a few times where I've run around because I didn't know what happened to the present I got someone.
The freezer top is also relatively clean. I had to deal with a stupid chicken yesterday, and I plopped that hen right on top the freezer, so excuse the freezer muck marks. Part of our problem has been that we stored things on top the freezer. Since the freezer needs to open, this was a bad idea.
And, the floor is clear. But.... it's so nasty. I hate this floor. The problem is that because it's just plain old wood, little bits chip off. And then any dirt you do get on the floor gets saturated INTO the wood. And us painting it white was not the best decision either, since every little chip shows. I have yet to figure out how to solve this issue. Rug? Gray floor paint? It needs to get solved, because right now I HATE moving laundry from washer to dryer. If something drops on the floor, I cringe. The floor is just NOT acceptable. Thoughts?
I also hung a window covering on the door. It actually makes the room cozier. No, I did not spend a ton of money (obviously), but I had this $2 coffee bean sack lying around (figured I'd find a use for it sometime) and it fit the window perfectly. Why spend money when it's a laundry room (and a rented one at that).
Inside our house, we finally decided we needed more space in our teeny, tiny (and ONLY) closet. It's 43"x42". Pretty small. And yes, all our clothes need to go in there.... Originally, we had the chest of drawers INSIDE the closet, but that made it difficult to get to half the clothes. (Note: don't you like how all the colors turned out here??)
So, I decided we had enough space in the living room to move out the closet. It used to be against this back wall:
Sigh... we still need to organize CLOTHES, but that will be improved upon when I put some of our summer clothes in that empty bin in the laundry room. It can often be difficult to put away clothes (due to lack of space), and so I'd like to someday soon tackle that problem.

So the weekend ended with more space in the laundry room, more things organized, and more closet space. Yesterday, I bought 8 little plastic boxes (shoebox size) so I can organize smaller things, like garden seeds and pencils and and and. I have plenty of room in the laundry room and in the side shed, so I'll be getting to work soon!