• How to make your laundry spark joy

    How to make your laundry spark joy
  • No Knead Bread Dutch Oven – why it’s the miracle I needed

    No Knead Bread Dutch Oven – why it’s the miracle I needed
  • Homemade baby food – making it easy, fresh and DELICIOUS

    Homemade baby food – making it easy, fresh and DELICIOUS
  • A minimalist kitchen? What you REALLY need to cook for your family

    A minimalist kitchen? What you REALLY need to cook for your family
  • 7 essentials for planning your baby’s nursery

    7 essentials for planning your baby’s nursery

beautiful small kitchen

helping you love your home!

  • Welcome to beautiful small kitchen & about me
  • blog
  • small kitchen appliances guides

blog

How to make your laundry spark joy

Posts on Beautiful Small Kitchen contain affiliate links, at no cost to my lovely readers ?

Does your laundry room spark joy?

Or ignite fear and dread ha ha.

For me, the laundry is an ever present reality. We’re a relatively large family – five young kids and 2 adults – and we produce a lot of laundry. Baby clothes, bedding, towels, football kits, pjs, etc etc.

It used to get me down – the ever present laundry. But I’ve decided to get the negative emotions out of it. After all, providing clean clothes for your family is just a kindness. I want to bless them with matching socks occasionally 😛 

So, inspired by the recent KonMari trend, I’m facing it head on. I want my laundry to spark joy!!

There are two elements to this:

the laundry room

and the process of laundry itself.

 

So, taking the laundry room first.

 

  1. Make the laundry space beautiful!

 

Full disclosure: I don’t actually have a dedicated laundry room (most small houses don’t, right?). 

But I do have a dedicated laundry space. 

Having it aesthetically pleasing actually does make a big difference to me. It’s not really about having it fancy – just something that makes me smile a little. 

Check out this laundry metal street sign. I love how it makes the laundry area an official work space. And evokes lots of nostalgia too. 

 

Try this wooden rustic Farmhouse style laundry sign for a more cosy farmhouse look:

Does your laundry spark joy? Or ignite fear and dread like mine ha ha :) I've been tackling this head on - check out my laundry makeover tips #laundrytips #laundryroommakeover #sparkjoy #loveyourlaundry

Now onto laundry baskets. You need baskets for dirty clothes and baskets for clean. I suggest color coding them so that little people can easily get more involved in the process. The colors make it much easier to give clear instructions. Mine are from Ikea.

 

I’m a little bit in love with this series of peg bags by the Ulster Weavers. Cute and practical! Cows, sheep, owls… Really cute gift, too. 

 

 

 

And how cute are these gorgeous colored pegs?? Talk about sparking joy! I love how a simple little thing can make such a big difference. 

 

2. Make the laundry process as tidy as possible

So, the actual process of laundry. 

Sometimes laundry makes me feel a liiiiitle bit stressed out. What is it about an unassuming pile of clothes that can do that to a grown adult?

For myself, it is the laundry creep. Little piles appear across the whole house. Some to put away here; some to put away there. A little pile to iron here. A big pile of dirty towels to wash there.

So organizing it in one place and in a tidy fashion makes me feel better. And it makes the process easier to follow through.

Here’s what I recommend:

  1. Write down the whole laundry process as it happens in your own family.
  2. Where does the laundry collect?
  3. What different processes are involved?
  4. Then write down the physical space where each of these processes happens. Does that need to change?
  5. Do you have every container you need for a streamlined laundry process?
  6. Do you have a tidy space with a sense of beauty, so your laundry room can spark joy for you?

I keep a rail for hangers in my laundry area, so shirts can go from the wash pile to the machine to the rail to the ironing board, thus avoiding the scrumpled heap of clean shirts on the sofa (which have happened previously).

I like these chunky wooden hangers from AmazonBasics for helping clothes to keep their shape.

 

 

Also useful: two different storage boxes for detergents.

I like to have one for the products I use several times a week, and a separate one for the products I use less frequently. 

They get messy quite easily so I recommend these high quality plastic containers – easy to rinse out, and sturdy too. 

 

It’s definitely a process – making my laundry room spark joy for me. But making it beautiful certainly helps. And making the laundry process more streamlined 

 

 

Are you in the mood for sorting out your kitchen and streamlining your cooking processes? Then check out this post: What do you REALLY need for a minimalist kitchen 🙂

 

Tot straks! Elizabeth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the author

Elizabeth is a writer and a long time occupier of (mostly rental) small kitchens. She delights in making kitchens beautiful, and in helping you to do the same.    Over the past 10 years she has lived in an apartment above a restaurant, a tiny Victorian terrace, an Edwardian (even tinier) home, and a house with a kitchen from the 1980s. She now lives in a 1970s house with lovely natural light but very minimal cupboards.


6 Comments

« No Knead Bread Dutch Oven – why it’s the miracle I needed

Comments

  1. candy says

    February 28, 2019 at 5:18 pm

    I don’t really have a laundry room. But I have made it as pretty as possible to do laundry there.

    Reply
    • The FB says

      February 28, 2019 at 6:34 pm

      That’s my approach too 🙂 Thank you for visiting, Candy!

      Reply
  2. Annette V says

    February 28, 2019 at 7:07 pm

    I never worry about prettiness as I do functionality. if it works for me.. YAY (and I have a system now that does) and when it doesn’t.. GROWL.. and then I fix it.

    Reply
  3. ShootingStarsMag says

    March 1, 2019 at 1:04 am

    The washer/dryer at my house is in the basement, so it’s not a fun place to really hang out, no. LOL I like the idea of trying to make it a bit pretty or comfy though!

    -Lauren

    Reply
  4. Katie says

    March 1, 2019 at 4:06 am

    I don’t have a dedicated laundry room either, so I’ve never really thought about doing much with the tiny space above my washer/dryer. But I love these ideas!! Going to see what I can fix up 🙂

    Reply
  5. Charissa says

    March 2, 2019 at 9:21 pm

    I’m not going to lie, I was a little skeptical that “spark joy” and “laundry” could go together unless someone else was doing that laundry for me lol. Still, your suggestions are adorable, super festive, and could at least make it tolerable for me to wash 8942375320875 loads of laundry 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • How to make your laundry spark joy
  • No Knead Bread Dutch Oven – why it’s the miracle I needed
  • Homemade baby food – making it easy, fresh and DELICIOUS
  • A minimalist kitchen? What you REALLY need to cook for your family
  • 7 essentials for planning your baby’s nursery

What do you need?

Beautiful Small Kitchen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. All opinions are those of the author and links cause no extra charge to the readers of this blog. Thank you.

Copyright © 2021 · Divine theme by Restored 316

Copyright © 2021 · Divine Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.