I received a few emails about my laundry after my laundry printables post. I have been meaning to post about my laundry as I do love how well it functions for us but never seemed to get around to it. But now, here it is. :o}

The laundry was pretty much the very first thing we did in our house. Our previous house had an awful laundry that was in the hallway. The laundry wasn’t in it’s own room or even a separate area, but right in the hallway where all the kids bedrooms were. So when we moved into this house I was so excited to actually have a laundry space and before we did anything else – we went to Ikea with this lovely plan I had drawn up of a laundry I felt would function well for our family and paid the grand total of about $200 for the whole lot. Pretty good huh! :o}

This is the Ikea Antonius range. Mine is three years old now, the current version (at our Ikea anyway) is white instead of the metallic and birch. I picked up a brochure when I was there with Clare from The HOME She Made earlier this month so I could give you current pricing details.

We have four wall rails along this side of the laundry {$10 each}. And then we have 2 fold down drying racks {$19 each}, 1 rail for hanging shirts etc that are on a hanger {$10}, 2 wooden shelves for storing washing powder etc {$10 each} and then up the top we are using the wire shelves {$15 each} to house a line of labelled plastic storage boxes with lids that contain anything from first aid stuff to lightbulbs and extra batteries. Then we have 3 packets of brackets for the wire shelves {$9 each} and 2 brackets for the birch coloured shelves {$6 each}

I love this because I can hang a lot of clothes up in here without having to go outside to the line if I don’t want to. This is obviously really helpful when it’s rainy and means I don’t have to have a clothes horse in my living room. In the above picture – one drying rack is out {above the laundry sink} and the other one is folded down {the very left hand side of the photo}.

Total cost = $192 {not including the buckets / tins / jars / boxes} 

Definitely not a gorgeous laundry set up – but it does the job nicely. One day I think we’ll get a bench over the top of the washer and dryer.

I mentioned in my laundry label post that I spend a lot more time in here now as I try and keep on top of the folding and some of you asked what I meant / what was I doing to keep on top of it all.

My answer is that I fold IN the laundry now rather than putting all the clean stuff in a basket to fold in front of the TV {which I would never get around to}. I posted this photo on my facebook page last year –

look familiar? This was my life. Every week. Baskets and baskets {there was 1 more I had already done prior to this photo} of folding that would literally take hours.

Now I take clothes off the line and fold them straight away before they even go into the basket. It literally takes me less than 10 minutes most days just to fold a load of laundry. I am truly converted. No more hours of mundane folding once a week.

I was also asked for pictures of my linen cupboard. Well, I don’t really have a linen cupboard full of linen, I have a linen cupboard full of stuff! Storage isn’t great in our house so it is used as a sort of storage cupboard for personal products like spare toothpaste, soap and a jar full of those mini toiletries you get from hotels etc that I keep for guests.

I have our window squeegee and our dusters hanging from hooks and our mop and ironing board are in here too. Down the bottom I keep a box with beach bags and our picnic mat. Our vacuum lives in here as well.

I also keep our spare dishwashing tablets {a smaller jar is kept in the kitchen} and extra cleaning products and dishwasher cleaner in here.

And our extra cleaning cloths, mop fibres and our iron are stored in here too. 

Now these are my all time favourite favourite containers. They suit so many things in my house that I have them pretty much everywhere. They are from Officeworks and they are called Multi Function Separator {weird name huh} and when I bought all of mine, they were less than $5 each. Now they are closer to the $6 mark – I still think that is pretty good! They fit in my laundry cupboard as shown, but I also use them in the kitchen, pantry and craft cupboard. I have been wanting to post about them forever but Officeworks has them in stock sporadically it seems and I didn’t want to post about something that was unavailable {again}. A few weeks ago I found that you can also buy these at Howards Storage World, however they are pricier there. Howards also have the slightly narrower version, which Jen from I Heart Organizing uses here in her freezer. :o} I have bought a few of the narrower ones, it’s not clear in this picture but that is what the middle container is.

They are great as they’re quite high and fit a lot in. Perfect for organising this stuff in my laundry but as I said, I use them everywhere around my house.

And then I have a nice set of hooks at the very end of the laundry for our swimming bag. Towels get washed after swimming and get put back into this bag as soon as they’re folded so that the bag is ready for me to just add their change of clothes and we’re good to go.

So there you have it – more laundry talk than I ever thought I’d share on my blog haha. :o}

x