Bag No. 3

I'd just cleaned the laundry room a few days before, but it needed something deeper to get it back to a state of being more help and less hindrance.

This is some of the dysfunction we started with...

So I spent part of Sunday

- Checking expiration dates on medication and tossing any that were expired

- Tossing any cleaners that we don't use regularly

- Getting rid of empty ribbon spools (you'd  be surprised how many of those I have!) and other crafty odds and ends

- General decluttering

And now the space has been restored to functioning well for us 

(and thank heaven for that because without it my ship is sunk!)

I designated these two green bins for the two things that consistently clutter up this room because they have no other place to go - Mail & Gifts and Returns.  

Nothing is worse than buying a gift and forgetting where  you put it.
Now i know where to put it and where to find it!

As for the 'Returns' bin, I used to shake my head as an unmarried twenty-something, that my mom would let something she bought (but that didn't work out) sit and fester, rather than returning it for her hard earned cash.  She kept her stash in the dining room and eventually gave it away to charity.

NOW I TOTALLY GET IT!!  

(Sorry Mum!)  

By the time I get the time to take something back, of course I can't find the receipt or it's past the date when I could return it, or the moon is in the wrong phase, or they changed the rules two days before...it drives me bananas, which is why I'm trying (and failing, but still trying!) to keep this bin from overflowing.

This isn't the best place for it because it gets in the way, but for right now, it's the only place I've got other than the floor.  And I can't put them on the floor because I've got a toddler who is more than happy to empty them seventeen times an hour for me.

The disaster of a medicine cabinet is now organized the way we use things instead of as one big jumble. 

 I used bins from the dollar store (that didn't fit until I MADE THEM FIT, which involved cutting off the edges and covering them with duct tape - it's not perfect but it worked in a pinch).  And then I labeled them with my standard Beth Mallett label.

Why is it my standard label you ask?  Because I always have two things on hand in large quantities; the free 4x6 photo paper that comes with my printer ink and packing tape from the post office (because I consistently forget to bring it when I need it and always end up buying more.  And not for nothing, but it is seriously the best packing tape money can buy.  Never tangles, never flops backward and sticks to itself - it's truly the KING of packing tapes).

So I made a 4x6 printable in a bunch of colors that I can use whenever I need to label something, and then I stick it on with a length of packing tape that virtually disappears to the naked eye.

Hmmm, I should post that printable here.  I wonder how to do that?  I will go find out and post it soon! (and by soon, of course I mean, possibly never, or maybe tomorrow.  It's really anyone's guess!)

I stuck some more labels on my apothecary jars in the other upper cabinet.  They look pretty, but they're kind of a pain to use.  But since anything on the top shelf is kind of a pain to use when you're 5'2"...they might as well look pretty, no?

The green basket is Maeve's bath essentials.  Because in a house with two tubs and three showers, she gets bathed in the laundry room sink.  What can I say?  It works!  She can play with cups and buckets until her fingers and toes get pruney, and I can get my laundry folded.  It's a win-win situation.

The green box is full of all the little laundry doo-dads that would otherwise clutter up the space; stain stick, stain spray, an old toothbrush for scrubbing things, a bleach pen, a tide pen, and of course, a few treats for the laundress as she toils away (right now there's some Aldi granola bars and some trail mix that has nuts which I hide in here because of Ben's allergy.)

This faux-antique shelf is getting too cluttery for my liking, but I haven't yet decided what to do about it.

(pssst!  See that Yankee Candle plug-in?  "Autumn Leaves".  Everyone who comes in my laundry room comments on how amazing it smells, and I agree.  Nothing like actual autumn leaves, the scent is just the epitome of fruity, happy, deliciousness.  You can thank me later when you buy one and people start commenting on your house being delicious!)  

So anywho, back to the clutter zone.  The bottom shelf is where I stash all my different pens and markers so that Molly won't swipe them. (she's NOTORIOUS - No art supplies are safe when she's around)
(buckets and labels are from the Target Dollar Spot)

And the top shelf is where I keep our collection of beach jars.

I started keeping them in 2010 when we made our first trip to Lake Michigan and I couldn't believe that the 'sand' was actually perfect, teeny, tiny pebbles.  It was so cool I saved some, and the rest is a dust collection history.

(oh, and holy water...no self-respecting granddaughter of Anne O'Dwyer would be caught without it)

Someday I'll figure out something absolutely FABULOUS to do with all of these bottles and jars, but for right now they can hang out with me while I wash, fluff and fold.

Then we have the cleaning cabinet, with it's double layer of security (one yellow, one pink)

In all honesty, I'm a dish-soap-on-a-washcloth cleans everything kind of girl, so these are just the specific-task cleaners that I use for specific tasks OR that I am afraid to let go of because I can't get more (like the leather conditioner for the couch)

My DIY gift wrap station

(This is where the empty ribbon spools came from)

Underneath this is Pajama Central where each Mallett kid has his or her own section

(That way, when they take off their clothes and throw them on the floor because they somehow believe that laundry walks itself to the washing machine despite what I've told them to the contrary...at least then I don't have to walk far to put them in the washer.)

See, here's my professional drawer-emptier getting ready to go to work!

On the wall is Jack's

Karate gear rack

L to R we have his sparring gear, white gi, brand new green belt, black gi and on top his bo (staff) and bokken (sword)

And hiding behind the door is the cleaning tool rack and my bag of other bags.

This is one hard-working laundry room!  What I would give to take some square footage from someplace I don't need it, and put it in here! 

And of course, because it is such a hardworking zone, it looked like the pictures above for about fourteen seconds after I took these pictures.  Thank goodness for iPhone cameras - at least I captured the moment while it lasted!