Joanna Gaines Shows Us Easy Ways To Pack Extra Storage Into A Laundry Room

It's easy to fall in love with Joanna Gaines and her casual, comfortable, farmhouse-inspired style, showcased by her Magnolia brand. The thoughtfulness she puts into her designs somehow just matches the needs of what everyone seems to want. And what most people want in their homes are great laundry rooms and endless storage. Gaines capitalizes on both with a laundry room makeover that packs in more storage than we thought possible (via Instagram). Looking around the room, you'll spy jars for storing the small things, baskets to contain bigger items, and upper and lower cabinets to tuck away just about everything else.

People who don't do laundry (we can't even talk to them!) probably wonder why you would need a lot of storage in a room where you "just" wash and dry clothes. But to the laundry doers, extra storage in accessible places is the Holy Grail of laundering. It isn't just needing a place for laundry detergent and stain remover spray. From orphaned socks to runaway buttons to powders, liquids, and gels that perform a multitude of functions, a functioning laundry room needs to contain many items of various shapes and sizes, and viscosity. Gaines and her husband were/and are famous for attending to those kinds of details on their HGTV show, "Fixer Upper," and Gaines brought the same attention to detail to the makeover she did to a space dubbed The Castle in Waco, Texas. It was in that laundry room where her storage skills were on full display. You might say the tide turned and it was our gain.

Doing a laundry room makeover so that it has primo functional storage like what Gaines created means adding cabinetry (uppers and lowers) wherever they'll fit, including pretty yet functional baskets. You'll also want to take a look at all the items you really use. You might find that there are some — detergent and oxygen bleach, perhaps — that you reach for every laundry day. Storage for the most-used items are the ones you'll want to be able to put your hands on quickly.

The area near the washer and dryer is a good place for the one laundry room feature Martha Stewart swears by for optimal organization: floating shelves. When you're doing laundry, you don't always have a lot of time to linger, and being able to just reach up and grab what you need off a shelf can be a big help. Pair the idea of having a few open shelves with some of Gaines' great-looking, useful jars, and your laundry room will be organized in no time. If you get jars with wide-mouth, screw-top lids that can be air-tight, they'll be perfect for holding things that you want to keep free from the effects of too much humidity, like Epsom salts, borax, or baking soda. Folinstall's Mason jar comes in a 2-pack, each holding 74 ounces and with a 4.3-inch wide mouth, and has a convenient handle on the glass jar, which makes it easy to take off of a shelf. If you think glass might be too heavy (or breakable) or you want something that has more capacity, try Cornucopia's clear plastic gallon jug, which also has a handle and holds twice as much.

When you're adding storage to your laundry room, do what Joanna Gaines did when remodeling The Castle in Waco, Texas. She used every surface rather than just focusing on the areas adjacent to the washer and dryer. In doing so, Gaines could maximize storage (permanent or temporary) while keeping the space clear in case she needed to shake out a wrinkled shirt or sort the lights from the darks. Even a small laundry room could fit a few of her clever storage ideas. One of the six beautiful Fixer Upper-inspired laundry room ideas you'll want to recreate might be the wall hooks that Gaines uses to keep things organized and off the floor. In the laundry room in The Castle, on the wall perpendicular to the one with the appliances, Joanna kicked that idea up a notch and installed an expandable coat rack, which can be used for a multitude of items, including hanging lightweight drip-dry garments (lingerie, scarves, and little girl's fancy dresses, for example). AMAPON makes an accordion-style one that has 13 rounded pegs.

We're unsure if Gaines installed anything behind the door, but if she doesn't have the simple laundry room storage solution Pinterest is loving, she may want to hang one up. It'll surely level up the space.