Declutter Your Laundry Room By Tossing These 13 Commonly Stored Items

Dedicated laundry spaces are some of the most functional and busy rooms in the home, particularly for those families that have a lot of clothes and linens to clean. The best laundry rooms are well-laid out, easy to maneuver in, and have all you need in easy reach for the task at hand. Surface area can be at a premium in a functional laundry room, with lots of space needed for sorting and folding. That means there isn't much room for items that don't need to be or shouldn't be stored in the laundry room. By eliminating things like exercise equipment or paper products, you can make your laundry room less cluttered, safer, and easier to work in.

While you may be tempted to take advantage of any extra corner of space for additional storage, some items can make working in the laundry room difficult by clogging pathways and occupying counter space. Others can create harmful conditions, fire hazards, or promote unwanted issues like mold and bacteria growth. Some can damage machinery or the laundry itself.

Detergent and fabric softener containers can easily make a room look more cluttered, so consider ditching them for some bulk containers that allow you to organize your laundry room more uniformly. If you can, get rid of the packaging for a more unified visual look. If you want to keep them in their original containers, store them out of sight to reduce clutter. Also, make sure to remove and recycle empties and don't let them build up before trashing or recycling them.

You may be tempted to keep pet supplies in the laundry room like crates, litter boxes, and food dishes if you don't have a dedicated space for these elsewhere. While it may be the only option, it's not really ideal because the humidity from the machines and fragrances from the laundry can make it inhospitable for pets. This may also increase the amount of pet hair and dander in the room, which can affect the cleanliness of your clothes.

Wet and damp items can harbor mold and other nasties that may lead to having to wash them all over again. Leaving damp clothes in piles can be bad for them and create additional clutter. Run them through the dryer again or hang them up to dry with lots of space around them for proper airflow. Or, when weather permits, hang them outside to dry in the sun by adding a clothesline to your yard.

If you lack storage, you may be tempted to keep out-of-season clothes in the laundry room instead of garages, basements, or closets. However, the moist environment may lead to the clothes suffering damage from humidity, moths, or other deterioration over time. If you have to store them there, make sure they are in moisture-proof bins tucked out of the way.

Since the laundry room is a space with electrical machinery and a lot of fabric, it's potentially dangerous to store flammable liquids like kerosene, paint, paint thinner, or other chemicals in this room. These materials can also have bad smells that can affect you when doing laundry in a closed area. Keep these in a safe spot in a garage or exterior shed instead.

Do not store weighty items, like large bins of clothes, on top of washers or dryers for very long. The excess weight can damage both the mechanical aspects and the cosmetic look of your machines, leading to dents, sagging, or scratches. Heavy things on a machine can also throw it off balance or be a fire hazard.

Things often have a way of building up in heavily used spaces like laundry rooms if you're looking for a place to stash them quickly out of sight. If the surfaces in your laundry room manage to accumulate everything from tools and hardware to random gardening supplies, clearing these out regularly and putting them where they belong can keep your surfaces neat and functional for sorting and folding.

If you don't have sufficient cabinet space in your kitchen or dining room, you may be tempted to store large serving dishes, punch bowls, and other similar items in any available space. They can, even when tucked away in cabinets, limit space for supplies and items related to actually doing laundry. Left out, they can make the space look cluttered.

While you may think the laundry room would be a great place to store large packages and extra paper towels, tissues, and toilet paper, the heat and humidity can cause them to break down over time. These items can also create quite a mess if stored on the floor if there is a flood from the washer. They are much better off stashed in a closet or other storage space in the home. 

If you lack a craft room, you may want to keep hobby items in your cabinets and shelves in your laundry room where there is extra space. Moisture and humidity in a laundry room, however, can be rough on some supplies and tools, causing warping and rusting. You can also risk getting things like paint or glue on clothing if it's not property stored away. Overall, they can make the room more cluttered and chaotic.

The laundry room is not a good place to keep food since the chemicals and moisture can be bad for both packaging and contents. Storing them there could also attract pests to a room you want to keep clean and sanitary. If you have to store food items in a laundry room, stick to canned or bottled ones and keep boxes and other kinds of packaging elsewhere.

Since a well-appointed laundry room allows you to move about easily as you do your tasks of washing and folding, large and ungainly items like exercise bikes or rowing machines may hinder your ability to do this. The high humidity could lead to rusting and breakdown of fitness machines over time. You may also want to avoid the fumes and excessive heat in a laundry room as you work out.  

While a laundry room may seem like a great location for a deep freezer or extra fridge if you have the room, they can often be bulky and could take up space that would be better used for an additional cabinet, hanging area, or sorting bins. In addition, the electrical infrastructure of your home may be under stress with large appliances all on one circuit running at the same time. If you must place it there, make sure there is adequate ventilation around all appliances.