34 Weeks of Clean -- The Laundry Room

I feel like I've gotten all off track with the 34 Weeks of Clean challenge. I cleaned my linen closet the week Michele gave us the Hall Closet assignment because we don't have any hall closets. It turned out okay, though, because it took me a while to finish up the laundry room assignment for week 22.

We are lucky to have a rather large laundry room in this house, and it's conveniently located upstairs near all three of the kids' bedrooms.

Unfortunately, since it's also conveniently located near our school area, I started storing extra homeschool materials in there. Over the past three years, it became a convenient dumping ground and was quite disorganized.

I started by straightening up the shelf above the washer and dryer. It still holds extra school books, but it's more nicely organized now.

I then moved on to clearing off the top of the washer and dryer. The overwhelming ironing stack ended up only taking about half an hour to iron. I put away all the miscellaneous junk that had collected on top of the dryer and left only a few necessities out.

The next step was to clean the washer and dryer. I took three complete cleaning cycles to get the washing machine to stop sudsing. I think the laundry detergent pods that I've been using have a bit too much detergent, and it's been building up. I really liked the glass candy jar I repurposed to hold the detergent pods, but it's going to have to find a new job as soon as I use the last pod.

While cleaning the washer, I even cleaned out the lint filter in it. I used to be very good about draining the washer and cleaning the filter every month, but I had let it go a bit lately. It's amazing the difference that little bit of cleaning will make in terms of preventing sour smells in the washer.

We have two sets of hooks hanging on the wall across from the washer and dryer. It's convenient to hang things there temporarily, but I've often left things there so long that the temporary storage became permanent. With everything put back away where it belongs, the room feels much more spacious than it really is.

I started to ignore the stack of school tubs beside/behind the washer. Everything is going to get moved in about a month, and I figured I could deal with it then. It's a good thing I went ahead and looked at them. There's no way I could move a bin full of books in this condition:

So far all I've really done with these bins is to dump them in the middle of the schoolroom floor and create a giant mess. Straightening them all up is next on my priority list, though.

With the bins gone, I was able to push the ironing board, drying rack, and vacuum cleaner back into that space. The whole room looks less cluttered and more inviting now!

If you'd like to join me with the challenges, you can find Michele's posts on her Family, Faith, and Fridays blog, on the Facebook page, or by clicking the button below.

Michele posts a new challenge every Friday and hosts a weekly link-up for any other bloggers who are brave enough to share pictures of their progress. It looks like we'll be working outside this week. I guess I better get up early so that it's not too hot while I'm out there.

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