Our laundry “room” got a makeover last week and I am loving it! The organization and routine is taking the stress out of doing laundry for our big family! 

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Before we get into the fun makeover nitty gritty, I feel like I need to tell you that my daughter spilled tea on my keyboard and if you notice as you are reading that o’s or i’s are missing…that’s why. The keys are sticky and I can only hope they loosen up in time.

Moving right alng…

(haha, that one was intentional. Keeping you on your toes).

I did a thing this week. Every so often, I just get an itch for a change. Usually this means something is going to get painted, rearranged, or repurposed in some way.

After looking around my house trying to figure out what project I could take on, I settled on finding a new solution for my kids’ laundry. It maybe wasn’t the most exciting project (perhaps not what my Instagram friends had in mind when I asked if they wanted to see whatever project I got into in my stories), but it definitely was born from a need.

Our kids’ clothes have been in a dresser in our living room for a while now. We didn’t hate it, but it did mean piles/baskets of laundry being brought upstairs and too often sitting for at least a day or two.

So I decided to move all their clothes downstairs into the basement. 

Laundry Room Makeover & Kids’ Family Closet

Watch the Laundry Room Makeover and Kids’ Family Closet Q&A on YouTube! 

The Before.

I didn’t get a great before picture because I was just so ready to get working. But you can generally see what the area looked like from when I did the huge basement purge and organize video in the winter, and also what the laundry area looked like the day I started working (sorry about the pic I just borrowed from my Instagram story).

What you can’t tell is that the table was actually where the chest is now, and the chest was in a completely different part of the basement. Thanks to a dolly we had downstairs, I was able to move the chest without involving my husband– who typically does not share the same vision for projects that I do, which is why I prefer to keep most things a “surprise”.

I.e., it’s better in these cases to do it and show him after the fact. He now knows that if he leaves town, he will almost certainly come home to rearranged furniture and possibly painted walls. (I’ve done this twice in our bedroom alone).

The After.

The absolute biggest change was moving my kids’ clothing downstairs to the basement. We already had an empty chest of drawers in the basement from when I did a bedroom makeover in our master bedroom.

Now, the kids each have a drawer for their clothes right next to the washer, dryer, and folding table. It’s been amazing.

Another big change is the hanging area I set up for my boys’ dress shirts and my daughter’s dresses. One of my biggest challenges with laundry has been getting around to hanging up my kids’ clothes afterward the rest are folded and put away. Too often, they would end up sitting in a pile (a neat pile, but a pile nonetheless).

I repurposed a laundry organizer that we had been using to sort our laundry (three bags are supposed to hang on the frame), to be a place to hang some clothes downstairs. I used some extra IKEA shelves that were not currently being used on our bookcases upstairs to create a platform on which to rest the frame.

I mentioned above that I moved the table to it’s current location after moving the chest over. It’s now even more useful and the perfect spot to fold clothes.

The last couple of significant changes were moving the rug from in front of our “pantry” area to this laundry area. It gives us a soft place to change clothes and diapers.

I also switched out the baskets and tidied up the shelves behind the table a LOT. I grabbed a couple of wooden crates from elsewhere in our basement, and a couple of baskets that were not currently being used, to organize all our laundry supplies.

I put up a sign on the shelves and am LOVING the overall tidiness of the space, even if our basement is still unfinished behind everything.

Love my Grove cleaners! 

Q & A.

I asked y’all on Facebook and Instagram if you had any questions about our kids’ clothes or the laundry area, and you delivered. Rather than typing out all the answers (the baby is starting to wake up), I will just point you to the YouTube video since I answer them there.

If you have any other questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. You can comment here, on YouTube, or chat with me over on Instagram or Facebook. I LOVE hearing your ideas and thoughts.

Here are a few of the questions I answered in the video:

• do our kids actually like having their clothes in the basement?
• how do we fit each kid’s clothes into one drawer?
• what laundry products do we use?

Final thoughts.

Our house is old and major remodels often take a long time to complete (I’m looking at you, kitchen). Finishing our basement is something we’d love to do, but it’s not in the budget or schedule for now.

However, even with exposed pipes, insulation, and whatnot, we still have been able to make the space work for us, and we actually love being down there together. I even just finally got around to hanging up a hammock down there this week.

I share this, because one, “After” pictures still are not exactly “Pinterest Perfect”. But that doesn’t stop us from enjoying our home and being grateful for where we are now.

And for two, it’s highly likely that most of us have homes that still need a little work and our idea list is longer than our current reality. 

I shared on Instagram earlier this week how satisfying it is to take care of our homes and to create spaces that are welcoming and purposeful.

I want to end this post with the encouragement to you to not wait for perfect circumstances or a full budget to start making your home work for your family. Do what you can now with what you have now. 

That may mean repurposing items you have around your house, getting creative and looking past expectations to discover something new.

It could be as simple as decluttering and smarter organization.

Or it may just mean embracing what you have and getting out of the comparison game. I have friends and follow people on social media with amazingly beautiful homes. I’m not going to lie, sometimes I get a little envious. But I always come back to, “Gratitude makes what I have enough”.

There’s always something that can be done to add beauty and purpose and design. What can you do today? 

I’d love to hear from you! What is one thing you’ve done recently in your home to add beauty or purpose? What is one area you love, imperfections and all? 

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