Home Organization Advice

7 Practical Storage Solutions for Organizing Your Laundry Room

Last updated: Sep 16, 2023

Whether you love it or dread it, doing laundry is a part of life. There’s no way to avoid cleaning your clothing, sheets, towels, and linens, but there are ways to make it slightly more enjoyable.

And the best way to do that is to have a super-organized laundry room.

From shelves to bins to baskets, here are seven practical solutions for organizing your laundry room.

1. Mount Shelves and Hooks on the Wall

Adding a few shelves and hooks can make a big difference in how your laundry room functions.

Mount one or two shelves above your washer to hold detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets. Don’t want to look at ugly plastic detergent bottles? Pour your liquid soaps into glass mason jars instead!

Just remember to keep the scoop or have a measuring cup nearby so you know how much soap to use.

If you have a small room, you’ll want to maximize space to make room for bulky items like clothing bins and ironing boards. Mount two hooks on the wall or on the back of the door so you can hang your ironing board when you’re not using it.

2. Create a Place to Store Clean Linens

Dirty clothes don’t have to be the only garments that go in your laundry room. It’s also a great place to store clean items, too!

Mount a shelf upside down, with the support rails on top of the shelf rather than beneath it. This is the perfect way to stack folded sheets, towels, or kitchen linens.

The side rails will provide a barrier and your clean linens won’t fall off.

3. Hang a Drying Rod

Unfortunately, not all clothing can be tossed in the dryer — some things must be hung to dry.

Create a place to hang wet clothes by mounting a closet bar on the wall and adding some hangers to it. That will give you a spot to hang undergarments, lingerie, dress shirts, and other items that can’t be tumble-dried.

4. Add a Flat Drying Rack

When it comes to washing clothes, it’s important to follow the instructions on the label of each garment.

And if you’re someone who wears sweaters, you know that soft knits and crochet yarns can be one of the most difficult things to tend to. They can’t go in the dryer, and if you dry them on hangers, they’ll stretch out.

Therefore, the best way to dry a sweater is to lay it flat.

Lots of people dry their sweaters on top of their washer or dryer.

But if you have top-loading machines and need to do additional loads, those sweaters will only be in the way.

The chunkier the sweater, the longer it usually takes to dry.

To make your laundry room as functional as possible, add a flat drying rack. If you’re short on space, look for a collapsible one. You can fold it up when you’re not using it and slide it between your washer and dryer so it doesn’t take up any extra space.

5. Bring in Some Laundry Bags

Laundry bags and baskets are great for lugging dirty gear throughout the house. But they’re also the perfect way to store clean, folded items once they’ve been dried.

With a sturdy laundry bag, you can contain folded clothes until you get a chance to put them back in their respective drawers or closets.

The bigger your laundry room is, the more bags or bins you can have. If space permits, designate one bag for clothing, one for sheets, one for towels, and so on.

In a small laundry room, limit yourself to one bag, but put each load away as it’s done. That way, you’ll always have an empty bag for the next load.

6. Add Some Storage Boxes

Stain removers, sewing kits, spot cleaners … all of these things belong in a laundry room. And they’re easy to organize, as long as you have some storage boxes.

If you’ve followed our first tip and hung shelves, get some decorative boxes to store on them. They’ll add some style to the room and make it more functional.

Don’t have room for storage boxes? Mount a few hooks on the wall and hang baskets for small, miscellaneous items. You can even hang a trash bin for dryer lint.

7. Create a Folding Station

A designated folding station will give you a place to fold and stack your garments.

Have a front loading washer and dryer? Consider building a cabinet around them or adding a counter on top. A wide, flat surface is all you need to fold your clothing perfectly.

Short on space? Add a wall desk that folds down when it’s not in use. You can open it up when you’re ready to fold and close it so that it lies flat against the wall when you don’t need it.