5 Recycled and Repurposed Laundry Room Organizers

After successfully organizing the linen closet with chalkboard labels, I set my sites on spring cleaning and decluttering the laundry room.

Um, no I didn’t redecorate my laundry room. It’s always been The Evil Dead Laundry Room**  and superhero action figure hangout. They are NOT dolls. Even though they look like dolls. Every guy I know says they are NOT DOLLS.

I still say they look like dolls.!

I think laundry, and ironing especially, is an evil chore. This room sums my feelings up nicely even though it looks a cubical in an IT firm. Some of these things may or may not have lived in former cubicals or the computer room of our old apartment, ahem. Does that mean our plastic toys fall into the green creative reuse category? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s an insane fun room though. At least to us.

On an more decorative note, I hope I can redeem myself in your eyes with my distressed wall treatment  and the sisal rope I used as crown molding. I was going for country rustic until the room turned into psycho toy land.

 Rope as crown molding

5 Upcycled Laundry Room Organizers

The flat surface of my washer and dryer are a clutter magnet.  Fortunately, I found many things during my purge I repurposed into clever and useful upcycled laundry organizers.

Canister set – I bought four glass and stainless steel canisters at Big Lots to hold my homemade HE laundry detergent, oxygen bleach, washing soda, and borax. This is my only new purchase for the room because I was tired of waiting for the perfect set of something to show up at a thrift store. Surely this doen't happen to you because you are all so much more patient and cool than I am.

 A canister set contains clutter

I labeled the bottom of each canister with my label maker so I can tell what’s what. It’s tidier than the open boxes I had lined up on the dryer. 

I help Lisa with laundry by racing around the house to find her and bark to tell her the washer door unlatched. She pays me in treats. It's a win win.

Lucite gift basket – Now holds scoops I reuse for laundry detergent and powdered oxygen bleach. I use an old toothbrush for giving my laundry stain cleaner an extra scrub before popping stuff into the washer. The nail polish on the handle of the repurposed toothbrush is a reminder that this brush is for cleaning, not for teeth! That’s a mistake you really don’t want to make, ifyaknowwhatImean.

           

Telephone book storage boxes – I prettied up old boxes by covering them with Modge Podge and my never ending supply of telephone book pages (AKA free crafting paper.) I finished off the boxes by  hot gluing a gimp trim to the top of each box I had left over from my recycled bathroom renovation. One box holds Blitzkrieg’s bandannas, extra biodegradable potty bags, and grooming supplies. The other box holds extra light bulbs.

Cardboard drink holder – corrals flashlights waiting for the next blackout and keeps them from flopping all over the shelf of the laundry cart. I could have covered the drink holder in telephone book pages to match the storage boxes but I like the sun logo. Also, I’m running low on the ‘Podge after making a bunch of telephone book storage boxes for other areas of the condo. I’m concentrating on knocking the free to me projects off my long To Do list for now.

 

Pot Rack – I had a blacksmith friend make me this pot rack for the kitchen in my old apartment. Now it holds hangers waiting for me to take stuff from the dryer. 

 If you look closely you can see Husband putting 

his cowboy gun up his nose in the Wanted poster while the

rest of us try to look like tough outlaws.

I scored a big bag of hangers for super cheap at a consignment store. I soaked them for a week in a bathtub full of oxygen bleach before I started using them because I don’t know where they’ve been. I know many of you think plastic is evil (so I guess the hangers fit the theme of the room) but they are handy when line drying clothes on the bathroom shower curtain rod.

Three Laundry Room Organizers I Can’t Live Without

Living in a small space means I have to find storage where I can. I put the backs of my doors to work. These aren't new or repurposed organizers. However they are life and space savers when it comes to small space condo living.

Iron and Ironing Board Hanger –  An ironing board door organizer/hanger upper thingie holds both the iron and the ironing board. It also has a place for the repurposed spray bottle I fill with water and use for ironing. If my steam iron needs a little help in the wrinkle releasing department, I hit the garment with a spritz of water from the spray bottle. An extra bit of water makes ironing out wrinkles much easier. Although I still find ironing just as hateful as before.

 I made the ironing board cover from Halloween fabric. 

The print represents how much I enjoy ironing.

Plastic bag caddy - Try as I might, plastic bags still sneak into the house on occasion in the form of frozen spinach, bread, dried beans, and the like. Truthfully, the occasional grocery bag slips into the house because my counterpart is not as psychotic diligent as I am about remembering shopping tote bags. (He does it less than 5% of the time. I choose to find a reuse for the bags than yell at him because the bag comes into the house when he runs an errand for me without me asking which I appreciate. Besides the guy gives me sustainably grown flowers often for no reason in particular so I can deal with the occasional plastic bag. Your mileage may vary.

Back of the door organizer – holds the rest of my cleaning arsenal and Blitzkrieg’s  grooming, destinkafacation supplies and an army of lint rollers. Lint rollers aren’t green but necessary when your dog is part Wookie and starts blowing his coat in the Spring.

I use the tennis balls instead of dryer sheets. I fill the air freshener containers with baking soda for dog safe room deodorizing.

Dried lavender from my yard hangs from a ribbon to keep moths away. It also looks and smells pretty.

 Pretty pest control!

 

That’s my laundry room. Green (and not because I keep it real), organized, clever, repurposed, and just a bit wacky.

Just like me.

**Funny that this room is an homage to a horror movie because as a rule Husband and I don’t like movies where you get to know and care about the characters only to have them off'ed in bloody ways. Give me old school Universal monsters and suspense any day of the week. If you can’t do that, then give me Bruce Campbell. We’ll watch Bruce in anything (and we have. Bubba Ho’Tep anyone?)

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