Laundry Room Storage Upgrade Part Two: Organization Tour

Here’s how I organized my small laundry room to maximize storage space and keep all my cleaning supplies neat, tidy, and labeled.

In Part One of my Laundry Room Upgrade project, I shared all the details for the shelving we chose to improve our storage situation in the laundry room/cat room. But I know you’re dying to see what’s behind those cabinet doors and inside all the drawers, and today I get to show you! Here’s the official laundry room organization tour and every single product I used to make this room ultra-functional.

Laundry & Cleaning Zone

Let’s start the tour in the laundry and cleaning area. Above the washer and dryer are two 31.5″ cabinets and I chose to add doors because I really like a no-clutter look. No matter how organized a cabinet is, if I can see a bunch of things it feels cluttered to me. Some people love to see everything on hand, but I’m definitely not that person.

Inside the cabinets are all our laundry supplies, cleaning products, household essentials, and a few random things like cords and vacuum attachments that otherwise wouldn’t have a home.

I used a combination of a few different The Home Edit products to organize these cabinets. The larger bins are great because they have a shallow side for quick-grab items like laundry stain sticks, but they can also be turned sideways if you prefer to pull the bin out by the handle.

The smaller bins are great for categorizing all our supplies. I used them for things like Swiffer dusters, microfiber cloths, dryer balls, and specialty cleaners.

These turntables hold our go-to cleaning supplies with a gap in between for a roll of paper towels. I love having all the cleaning bottles on turntables because when they’re lined up on shelves, they can get knocked over and possibly spill.

I found this dual dispenser that’s technically for pantry food, but I’m using it for scent booster beads and Oxi Clean powder. It saves me from having to fumble with the container lids and pour them everytime. Now I just push the cup to the dispenser and never spill powder or beads. Before, I was always so worried a scent booster would spill and I wouldn’t notice, and a cat would eat it. This is so much safer for my kitties now.

Everything is kept inside the cabinets for a nice clean look, and by keeping the washer and dryer tops empty, I can do all my folding here without having to push supplies out of the way.

The only thing that lives on the dryer is this acrylic tissue box that holds dryer sheets. It’s easy to access and looks way better than the original dryer sheet box.

The Linen Zone

Moving clockwise in the laundry room, the next area is the linen zone. We don’t have a linen closet in our home, so we scatter linens throughout the house wherever we can store them. Guest linens are in the guest room, but our personal bedding sheets and extra blankets are kept in the laundry room.

This tower holds blankets, beach towels, bed sheets, crib sheets for our dog’s bed, and waterproof blankets for our sofa when we foster adoptable pets.

I also added a bin to hold a drill, impact driver, drill bits, and a few other tools because it was always annoying for me to go downstairs to get them all the time. I just got a second power drill set when it was on Rollback and now I have one pair in the garage and one upstairs. I keep an extra battery and charger here, too.

The storage tower we chose had options to add laundry accessories, so we chose this pull-out basket to serve as a multi-purpose storage location. Right now it holds an ironing mat and mateless socks, but I’m still playing around with how I’ll use the basket long-term.

And under the metal basket are two pull-out clothes hampers. I love that they’re right by the dryer and they can be pulled out of the rack easily, so I can carry the hampers to other rooms if needed. We are currently using one laundry bag for dirty towels and one for clean clothes that need to be transported to other rooms. Once we figure out exactly how they’ll be used, I’ll add labels to them.

The Corner Zone

Across form the Linen Zone is this corner and it’s kind of a hodgepodge of purposes. The cat litter boxes are here, along with the Litter Genie and my Pothos plants I’ve had for years. But I wanted to make the space a little more functional, so we added a tall hanging tower to utilize the wall height.

Inside the shelving are small appliances like a clothing iron and steamer, along with a watering can for the plants and extra laundry care supplies.

Since this shelf has a clothing rod, we keep extra hangers here, too. This is really helpful because I fold clothes right out of the dryer. Before, I was carrying all my clothes that needed to be hung to the closet and hanging them one by one. But now I can take items right out of the dryer, pop them on hangers, then quickly put them away in the closet. It’s also good for hanging up bras to air dry.

The Storage Zone

The other corner of the laundry room is another hodgepodge area. It holds a lot of pet supplies like Litter Genie refills, grooming tools, extra pet toys, and Winston’s coats and sweaters. I put all the pet supplies in drawers because our cats are sneaky and curious, and they know how to open cabinet doors but not drawers [yet].

In the other drawers we store things like bath towels, hand towels, CPAP supplies, and plastic grocery bags to reuse/recycle. I even have one empty drawer that we will use for seasonal storage, and I plan on swapping it out as needed.

The shelves in the Storage Zone hold random items like toilet paper and paper towels, vinegar and distilled water jugs, cat food, smudging supplies, tapered candles, Command strips, heating pads, and other miscellaneous things.

I used these stackable hinged lid containers for this zone because sometimes I use these items in other rooms of the house. Since the containers have an attached lid, it makes them easier to transport when in use. But the lids also prevent me from overfilling them, which is an important feature for miscellaneous storage. It’s easy to just throw things into a miscellaneous box, so lids keep things in check.

Underneath the towers are our cats’ food bowls, and we put these gripping placemats on the floor to prevent the bowls from sliding all over the place. They fit perfectly in the cubbies of the tower bases! Beside the food area is their water fountain, which is also on a waterproof nonslip mat. They also have a night light both here and by the litter boxes for midnight snack and potty breaks.

The Washable Waterproof Rug

This rug has been such a game changer for our laundry room already, and we’ve only had it for two weeks. It’s from Tumble and it’s 100% waterproof. I had seen videos online and was a little skeptical, but since this room deals with all kinds of liquid cleaners, water from laundry and pet bowls, and the occasional pet accident near litter boxes, I was excited to give it a try.

I got the 3×5 size, and it came with three mats that fit together like a puzzle. You lay the rug piece over the top of the puzzle mat, and there are corner pockets and floor grippers to keep it in place. Once I had the rug in the room, I immediately experimented with pouring water, laundry detergent, and even juice on it. All three liquids pooled up on the rug but never soaked through!

I know this rug will be really great for liquid spills, but since it’s machine-washable too, I don’t have to worry about cat litter messes. One of our cats has colitis and sometimes he “scoots” like a dog on rugs leaving a mess that I was constantly breaking out the carpet cleaner for. But now I can throw the rug right in the washing machine and it comes out looking brand new again.

The Bin Labels

You know I’m a Cricut lover, and one of my favorite projects is making custom labels, but for this room I had a lot of containers. It would have taken me days to design, cut, weed, and install all the labels I’d need in here, so I decided to take the easy way out and use pre-printed labels instead.

I found this huge set of labels for under $15, and they’re all the same size, so they look great next to each other. They’re pretty easy to remove, too, in case you need to change the contents of the bins. The selection is really wide, and there are also a bunch of numbered labels for miscellaneous storage that isn’t included in the label list.

I put all the labels directly on the clear bins, and for stacked items that didn’t have a container, I put the label on the inside of the cabinet door. This will help my family know where things go when there’s an empty shelf, as well as keep us all accountable to make sure the shelves stay tidy.

There were a few bins that were shorter or had less label space, so I just cut off the white space from the top and bottom of the labels to make them narrow instead of square. I did this method in my pantry with the same type of labels, and under my kitchen sink, too.

What’s Next For The Laundry Room?

While the storage aspect is complete for the laundry room, I still have some plans for future projects later in the year. I’d love to make a butcher block countertop over the washer and dryer to block off gaps between and behind the appliances. I also want to cover the wall area under the cabinets to hid the hookups.

The room still needs blinds for privacy since our neighbor’s house faces these exact windows (I’m sure they’ve seen more of us than they prefer when we run in to get towels after we’ve undressed) and I also plan on replacing the light fixture. All that will happen eventually, but for now, I’m just enjoying this ultra-organized laundry/cleaning/linen/pet space.