Updated from original post from December 14, 2015

I enjoy doing laundry. It’s one of my more shameful secrets. In my late teens and early twenties, I had this strange notion that I couldn’t be a successful feminist woman and also want to do laundry or organize fancy dinner parties. Then HGTV came along and I realized how wrong this notion was. I could want my home to be beautiful, I could love to do laundry, I could enjoy cooking dinner for my significant other and still want to get paid the same as men. This was a giant weight off of my chest.

In our condo, the laundry “room” was a closet adjacent to the kitchen. When we started building the house, I had been imagining our new Laundry Room as a grand mecca of organization. A space that would not only do the laundry practically by itself, but also hem all the pants I’m hoarding in the event that I actually get around to adjusting them for my midget height.

This amazing laundry room needed:

• Hanging space for air drying
• A sink for pre-washing
• Space to fold and iron
• Space to sew
• Shelves and Drawers for upstairs storage

I know that was a lot to ask from a laundry room which turned out to be a very narrow room in real life. Somehow, we were able to make it work.

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The window is west facing and we get plenty of light during the day. At night, not so much. I sometimes wish (usually when I’m sewing late at night the day before I plan to wear something that needed hemming or fixing) I had asked the builders to install a row of canned lights instead of the one boob light replacement we have.

I love our mini ironing board that matches the runner. I also love that it doesn’t make a terrible screeching noise when I open it, like the giant one my mom had in her laundry basement.

The drawers house extra toilet paper and kleenex, gym towels, lightbulbs, my laundry must-haves, a small steamer, and race bibs and medals I haven’t hung on the wall just yet. It almost makes sense since the medals are on the wall in the adjacent hallway.

I like having the shelf right next to the washer for the things I need most often: Detergents, the iron, and the bunny bank for loose change. Just above that we store bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths. The upper shelves are great for beach towels, old towels for large wet messes, and detergent back stock.

The sewing machine and serger are used for a bit and then not at all for chunks of time so the upper shelf is a good home for them. The utility board keep sewing supplies and other small tools easy to access. We also store a mini shoes cleaning kit just above the sink, since Chad has a thing about keeping his shoes looking nice. This is also the perfect spot to corral all the hangers; plastic (hang drying), joy/velvet (exercise jackets), and wooden hangers for everything else.

Under the sink I keep all the cleaning supplies for the upstairs. We also recycle anything we can and I used to have this really fun habit of leaving empty, clean, recyclables on the counter until the counter was too full for anything else before walking them to the recycling bin in the kitchen. Now I have no excuse to participate in such behavior, because there is a recycle bin. Did I say “used to”? I meant “still do… inexplicably.”

In the cabinet I store a massive first aid kit, scentsy wax melts, and back stock of basically anything we use in the bathrooms. Right across from the cabinets is a pull out hanger for longer items (like table cloths / table runners) that I used to hang in the guest bath and then forget about until we had guests. This works a little bit better, being in the room where I do laundry and all.

And here’s the shortlist of things I want to fix but this room isn’t high enough on the list to receive funding for such projects yet:

• Replacing the one light fixture with canned lights. Why? Why didn’t I just ask for canned lights???
• Tile Backsplash for the sink area, or possibly up that whole wall, I don’t know, sometimes I’m obsessed with tiled walls and sometimes I can’t stand them
• Potentially replacing the elfa with something more sturdy, like a shelf and cabinet system – something I could store an upstairs vacuum in because one day I will have a vacuum for each floor, damnit

Anyway, aside from what I’d fix, it’s practically perfect for us. What would your perfect laundry room have?