Thursday, February 24, 2011

How to Enjoy Doing Laundry

I have accepted the fact that I am always doing laundry. I no longer even have a "laundry day". I am just constantly doing laundry all week. Maybe it's the baby clothes. Maybe it's all the cloth diapers. Maybe it's that my husband has more wardrobe changes than Lady Gaga. Either way, it has actually become easier to do a few loads every day, then to wait for Monday to roll around and have a mountainous pile of clothes.

In order to make this whole process a little more enjoyable, I realized I need to make my laundry zone more tolerable. I say zone because I don't have a laundry room. I have a laundry pass-by in the garage. Literally, you pass through the machines when you walk in from the garage. All this to say, I don't have much to work with. In fact, it's taking me quite a pep talk to even post these pictures. This is a humbling experience for me. I'm not proud of the before pictures (who's proud of mess?), and I'm not even that proud of the after pictures (because I didn't have a sledge hammer to completely wipe out this area all together).

Here is the before picture of the shelves above the dryer. Surprisingly enough, most of this junk has a function. Which is probably why it is in such disarray, because I'm in a hurry when I'm using this stuff. Except for the cereal Tupperware up in the top left corner. I suppose I don't use those when doing laundry. On second thought maybe I should, who wouldn't want a snack while tossing things in the dryer?


This is the washer area. Isn't it great how I can vacuum with my right hand as I wash?


Here she is with some sprucing up. The brown basket is for lint, the green basket is for baby bibs and cloths after I feed him in the kitchen (which is right inside) and the glass jar holds detergent.

I lined the shelves with cute contact paper I had left over from Kyler's drawers. Small things like this make me happy.

Like I said earlier, I couldn't do much on this side without a sledge hammer, so I tried my best to cover up as much of the wall as I could. There aren't many "pretties" you can add to a laundry area, so I decided to make my own. I found a piece of wood in the garage and worked with the paint I already had.

This is my laundry take on the "live laugh love" phrase.


Last but not least, I splurged and bought new laundry baskets. Actually I didn't splurge, these things were majorly on clearance at Pier 1. I was convinced by this post from one of my favorite design bloggers, to invest in cute baskets. I'm so glad I did. I love that they match, they stack perfectly, and when they are laying around the house it just looks like part of the decor, minus the heaping load of dirty socks inside of it.
So that is why I skip and twirl as I walk to the garage with a cute basket on my hip to do my laundry. I hope you are picking up on my sarcasm here. Of course laundry will never be an exciting task, but making the space that I frequent so often sure makes it less painful.

4 comments:

  1. Now if only your lazy husband would paint the particle board behind te washer...

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  2. I call it "Do the Damn Laundry Day". Just that title makes me smile as I wash :)

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  3. Yes, maybe if I just start cussing more while washing clothes, I will have a blast! Love it!

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  4. I gave up on doing the laundry and wrote a children's book about it instead! check it out at www.thelaundrymonster.com

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