Start of Laundry Room Project, 2002
Laundry Room at the beginning of 30 Day Organizational Challenge
Laundry Room at the end of 30 Day Organizational Challenge
Total Expense during 30 Day Challenge: $176.28
Plan of Attack at the Beginning of Challenge:
Overall Goal: Remember that there should be a place for everything and everything should be in its place. To be able to use the laundry room as it was intended for and not for a catch all room. (Currently, I fold all my clothes on my dining room table.)
1. Find a place for the unused toys and clear out the floor area.
2. Sort and organize through the paperwork on the countertop and develop a system to address paperwork immediately.
.....Goal: Keep countertop clean so that it can be used for folding clothes.
3. Set up a place to organize craft items.
4. Attack the closet.
Actions Taken to Accomplish Goals:
1. Find a place for the unused toys and clear out the floor area.
- Sorted through toys and determined what to keep and what to give away
.....For toys we kept:
.....- Purchased garbage bags
.....- Covered toys with garbage bags to protect from the weather
.....- Transfer toys to garage
.....For toys to be given away:
.....- Photographed each toy and put it up for sale on an online yardsale
.....- At the end of the month, if no one purchases toys, the toys will then be given for free on FreeCycling
.....- Currently toys are stored in garage, organized in bins
- Purchased a basket for recycling paper that we just threw on the floor
2. Sort and organize through the paperwork on the countertop and develop a system to address paperwork immediately.
.....Goal: Keep countertop clean so that it can be used for folding clothes.
- Separated new paperwork from old paperwork
New paperwork:
- Developed a weekly "outbin" to be addressed once a week
.....- Papers are either filed, trashed, or referred to DearHubby to address
Old paperwork:
- Rough sorted through old paperwork and purchased bins
- Currently old paperwork bins are stored in laundry room closet for further fine sorting and filing (another 30 Day Challenge for myself)
3. Set up a place to organize craft items.
*Note: Craft & office supply items and magazines were stored in bins on countertop.
- Purchased 2 shelves and hung shelves up below laundry room windows
- Purchased containers for craft & office supply items
- Placed craft & office supply items on shelves
- Purchased binders and sheet protectors for magazine articles
- Tediously went through each magazine in bin and tore out all the articles I am interested in reading
- Each monthly edition was stored in a sheet protector and placed in binders
.....- One large magazine storage bin down to 3 binders
4. Attack the closet.
- Removed everything from closet
- Trashed what I didn't need
- Set aside items for FreeCycling or for Sale
- Made a list of items to be stored and made a list of bins that needed to be purchased
- Purchased storage bins and re-filled closet
5. Miscellaneous details.
- Purchased a hook and hung a laundry bag on DearDaughter's door to place her dirty laundry in
.....- The dirty laundry used to be placed on top of the dryer
- Determined a way to display DearDaughter's handprints
.....- We made a set of DearDaughter's handprints when she was 6 months old and set them on the window sill to dry, but never found a place or way to display them and they sat on the sill for almost a year
- Organized cabinets under the counter
- Purchased a Spacebag to compress sheets and sleeping bag and stored them under bed
.....- A friend gave me a set of sheets a few months ago, but I never washed them because I didn't know how to store them and I left them unwashed in the laundry room
- Cleaned utility sink
.....- Never cleaned sink before because we could never reach it due to items being in front of it
- Cleaned up plant
.....- Never took care of plant before because I didn't see any use in it since the laundry room was so disorganized
Lessons Learned:
- I learned how to part with items I didn't need, either by trashing them or by giving them away
- I learned that even if something is temporarily being stored in a room, it's best to give it a home to keep it organized
- I learned that an organized room allows me to even attack the smaller details and organize them
- I learned that organizing a room motivates me to keep it organized because I know how much work went into getting it organized and I don't want it to get out of control again
.....- Having the laundry room organized makes me want to keep up with the laundry and not have it pile up
See whole laundry room organization process in the following slide show:
1 comment:
What a great job!!! Im impressed..I need to print all of these things out!
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