i emptied out the cabinet and gave it a good cleaning….

here’s my detergent stockpile…just 8 of them. i’m not an extreme couponer/stockpiler. this is enough for me….unless i find another great deal (like i did sunday)…

i lined the bottom of the cabinet with the liner i used yesterday and then put everything back in. looking better! i mentioned yesterday, our finishes can make the inside of cabinets look a little dark, which makes it hard to find things and hard to see spills. this liner has helped resolve this issue for us.

one cabinet down….several more to go!

before i move on…..i’d like to introduce you to our laundry room. here it is looking in from the door…

here is the left side of the laundry room…

and here is the right side of the laundry room…

yes, i do realize how absolutely blessed we are to have this much space in a laundry room. it’s no lie that i love doing laundry now because of this space in our home. i love it! in our previous home we had a teeny-tiny laundry room. probably couldn’t even snap a photo of it – that’s how small it was! it was a small space between our door to the garage and the entry to our home…like a walk-thru of sorts. there was only enough room for our washer and dryer and there were a few cabinets above them. so when we moved to this home, i was giddy with excitement.

but with this kind of extra space you really need to stay on top of what’s inside the cabinets. for example, check out this photo….

everything had gone from being evenly sorted throughout the 3 cabinets to almost only occupying the cabinet on the far left. obviously, that is the cabinet that is easiest to reach. and when mommy is in a hurry and looking for carpet cleaning solution to clean spit up or ground in yogurt – get it in my hands quickly.

the items i needed to reach are there in that left cabinet, but there were so many other items in there that i didn’t use daily or weekly. furthermore, there were other random items scattered throughout the other cabinets on the right side of the laundry room. it’s easy for that to happen when you are busy with life. sometimes it’s good to re-group and re-organize….it makes you feel better knowing that behind those doors are organized cabinets. and you know where everything is!

it was time to pull everything out….

*first, i sorted through it all on several floor areas – that way i could see my inventory. anything that was similar went together – like all 6 of the window cleaning bottles. i love sprayway products and got them for a great price a few months ago. however, all 6 bottles were in the same cabinet, on the same shelf. i decided to designate the cabinet above the dryer for all of our extras/stockpiled products. i kept sorting until everything similar was together.

*second, anything that could be re-filled or combined was…..well, re-filled or combined. we tend to buy the re-fill containers at our local big box store. there were quite a few spray bottles running low – like windex – so those were re-filled. and any hand soap containers that were low or could have been combined to save space were completed at this time too.

*finally, i put everything away. this took some time and i had to adjust some of the shelving…which was fine. and i got a great arm workout in the process. 🙂

at the end, there were a number of small items that needed corralling, like batteries and small laundry products (my clorox bleach pens). do you remember my old caddies for crayons and children’s crafting?….

i had put them away for future use after that cubby project….finally i now had a way to re-purpose those!

and now for the newly re-org’d laundry room cabinets….

doesn’t this look more balanced?….

 

over the washer? laundry products i am using (not stockpiled)….

over the dryer, which is the least accessible spot in this laundry room? just the items to be stored/stockpiled…

and how did i re-purpose the blue caddies?  for batteries, flashlights, and permanent markers.

yup, those markers are on the tip-top shelf. like i said before, i’m a control freak.

the right side cabinets got a quick clean-up too!….

and finally, i was left with this pile. it’s all of our cleaning rags….

before they were just thrown into the cabinet. but i had an inexpensive idea. in fact, a free idea! i keep a pile of boxes for my eBay sales and had one that was just the right size for these. i folded in the sides of the box and grabbed some wrapping paper i never use….

then i simply wrapped the box to make it look prettier….

all of the rags fit into the box….

and i definitely think this looks better than rags sitting in a pile!….

that was it! the total project took about 90 minutes….a little longer than i would normally spend doing a project on a single weekday, but so worth it!

p.s. did anyone spy this little organizer in the laundry room…i’ll tell you what it is soon….