On Top of Mount Washmore

**WARNING: This post contains graphic and highly embarrassing pictures of my laundry room. If you're unable to hold back judgment, please click that little X up in the corner.**

**And also, this post has almost nothing to do with parenting. Except that if you're a parent you've got kids. And kids wear clothes.**

Ah, laundry. It comes with a whole host of problems, not one of them the actual washing part. The washing is easy, seeing as how a machine does that job for me. It's all the other stuff that I hate- the sorting, the folding, the putting away. Oh, and the remembering to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. I tasked Cap'n with figuring that one out- more on that later.

And it doesn't help that, until recently, I despised my laundry room. It's a small(about 5"x6")windowless room painted in dingy Builder's Beige in an upstairs corner with just enough space for the machines, a little trash can and standing room for two average-sized people. And because it's so conveniently located in an out-of-the-way spot that guests and visitors never see, it had also become a place to toss things when you didn't know where else to toss them.

Then one day about a month ago, I'd had enough of the laundry cave. I knew I wanted to make some changes, but really had no plan in mind other than a fresh coat of paint. I went into the room to really look at it and see what I had to work with. What I had was a mess! Not just a less-than-desirable space, but a huge amount of stuff that had to come out.


Here's what I was dealing with. Again- NO JUDGMENT!!

A new washer and dryer were not in the plan. Yes, I may be the only person alive who still has a top loading washer with an agitator, but I'm kind of fond of the ol' gal. I like to think of her and the dryer as an old married couple who bicker a whole lot. Besides, they work just fine and I take a certain sense of pride in using things (from shoes to appliances) until they lay down and die.

And there were no plans for structural changes or for hiring anyone to do anything. Any changes in this room were going to have to be done by me and me alone (with JBB holding a flashlight as necessary).

Oh, and did I mention that I'm cheap? Yeah, I'm cheap.

After removing every piece of trash, uselessness and ugliness from the room, it was pretty much empty except for Ma and Pa Washer-Dryer and a big pile of stuff that was going to have to get itself organized before I could wash another load.

Off I went to the home improvement store where I picked up a quart of paint. (By the way, one quart was not enough. It would require approximately one quart plus 1/1000 of a quart to cover the laundry room walls.) Because the pictures in this post were taken in such a tiny room with such poor lighting, it's hard to tell, but the color is a dark grayish purple called Silver Service. Whoever named it should be fired. If my silver were this color, I would not be amused. That is, if I even had silver!

Next, I had to find a way to corral all of those linens you see on the shelf in the picture up above. They couldn't move into the linen closet because that's chock full o' towels we aren't using. So I tossed any sets with missing pieces and kept only what we really need.

Here's our sheet situation now:

Those baskets used to sit on a beautiful changing table we bought when I was pregnant with A-Train. We used it to change approximately four diapers before we realized that the floor is the ultimate changing table.

And a closeup of one of the baskets:

I just printed the sheet size on card stock, cut them out with my paper cutter and laminated them with my new handy-dandy laminator. (Thanks Grandma Jinx!)

No more digging through a precariously perched mountain of sheets in search of a matching set in a particular size!

In the before picture you can also see that there's a wire shelf on the right side from which I used to hang anything that couldn't go in the dryer. There were a couple of problems with the shelf. First of all, it was too high. It was just low enough that I (as a pretty tall person) was able to fling stuff up there in unruly piles, and just high enough that I was never able to get anything down.

Now the idea that I could hang things there to dry was a good one. And hang them I did. Put them away once they had dried, I didn't. This led to a whole lot of mornings of standing in my closet wondering what on Earth had happened to that blue dress. And why I could never find a nightgown. And what kind of weirdo had broken in and stolen my underwear.

The system was not working.

So the shelf came down. (Digging out wall anchors with a pair of old pliers is not glamorous work.) And I decided that all hanging-to-dry would happen in my closet. That way when my clothes dry they're already almost-away and I can get dressed without wandering through the house looking for my clothes.

Then a new shelf went up.

This one is the right height for putting things on and getting them down! Now all detergents have a place to live that isn't on the floor! This shelf is my favorite part of the makeover because it's so darn functional.

The next picture is awful, so remember not to judge.

That's a super-el-cheapo shoe hanger that I got at, where else?, a discount grocery store. It's hanging on the back of the laundry room door holding things like measuring tapes and notions and the manuals to Ma and Pa and other random stuff you need to keep in there. Sure, it ain't pretty, but who sees it anyway?

This thing makes me happy in a way that only a sarcastic, eye-rolling, ten-loads-of-laundry-a-week-doing mama can understand.

It makes me scrunch up my face and mumble "yeah, right" and then it makes me smile and put in another load.

And speaking of another load- I've always had this general idea that if I could do one load of laundry- from start to finish- each day, everything else would fall into place. My kids would be well-behaved, my legs would be shaved, a dinner featuring at least two of the food groups would be on the table each night.

And I've frequently made a mental schedule for accomplishing my load-a-day-to- happiness goals. But, it's hard for me to do anything that I haven't put on a physical list. Even then, the odds that I'll be able to find the list are not good. And so I made this:

A piece of foam core, card stock, scrapbooking paper and Modge Podge. I plan to frame it, but for now it's just stuck on the wall with some poster tack. And it actually seems to help keep me on track. Though, sadly, it doesn't keep my legs silky smooth.

And that's it for the Laundry Room Makeover.

But wait, what about that other problem- the one with moving the clean laundry from the washer to the dryer?

After some extensive research, which is to say, asking four or five of my mom friends, I learned that I'm not the only one who sometimes finds fetid, once-clean laundry hanging out in my washer. It's easy to get distracted and forget that you put those towels in until it's too late. And then you have to wash them all over again, this time hoping you remember to move them to the dryer.

Since Cap'n is an A #1 software developer and all around nice guy, he built an app for me! Well, for anyone who wants it and also owns an iPhone. This app is beautiful in its simplicity! There's a one-time set up feature where you tell it how long your washer cycle is and from then on, you simply tap the app (as if to open it) and a timer is set for your pre-selected wash time.

Forty-five minutes (in my case, because I have the dinosaur washer) later, an alarm sounds reminding me to put the clothes in the dryer! If I can't do it right then, I tell it to remind me again in 15 minutes. It's freaking awesome! (Not that I'm biased or anything!) Check it out HERE!
Hopefully it can solve your stinky towel problems, too!

Happy Laundering!!