Transparency Tuesday:

My Dirty Laundry Room

In the spirit of keeping everything real and transparent (like I stated I would in So Long, Supermom) I would like to disclose that my laundry room looked like this just last week.  I could tell you that travelling and potty training, trying to fit in a little extra school time, and setting up a new homeschool space has all taken a toll on my typical housework.  Yes, the laundry room truly turned into a horrible pile of mess.  Unfolded clean clothes on the “folding table” and an assortment of dirty on the floor.  Let me just tell you, it is clearly not enjoyable to do laundry with the room in this condition.

Enough is Enough

(In the spirit of full disclosure, this post does contain affiliate links, which means that I may get a commissions if you decide to purchase anything from the following links. I only recommend products that I use and love myself!)

We had taken a one week trip out of town and then the very next weekend, I went out of town for one day in a very unplanned, last minute excursion.  These two back-to-back trips allowed forced me to get behind on my laundry routine.  Not only did I have my normal level of kids laundry to do, but I also had a suitcase and extra bag to unpack from our longer trip.  It is really easy, with as many kids as we have, to let laundry get out of control.  Kids might start randomly throwing laundry on the floor or missing the hamper and then we get to the crazy mess.

 

So last week, I had decided I had had enough.  I kept making small dents but never enough to get get through it.  It’s not easy when you do 1-2 loads in a day and then the preschooler comes by and throws more clothes on the floor.  Trying to catch up with the pile of laundry while more laundry grows on the floor and in baskets.  It is like a big monster.  A laundry monster.  And then it happened.  My 3 year old left a tutu dress on the floor and my foot hit it just right and I slipped.  I fell straight down on the floor.  I haven’t taken a fall that hard since the last time I wore a pair of ice-skates.  And that was that.
 I can’t believe it took that low point (quite literally) to kick me into gear.  But I freely admit, that yes, it took that to see how ridiculous it was to not carve out an hour and completely get this laundry room under control!  I cleaned up the floor and loaded up the washer with the clothes that were piling up.  I took all the clean laundry out of the room and put it all away.  I vacuumed, mopped and dusted the room.   (Pictured above is a Simply Stashed Hanging Organizer, which houses all of cleaning supplies: Simply Stashed)

The hamper shown above is from Amazon.  It is found here: 3 bag laundry sorter.

 

Ahhh … it feels so nice to have a clean space to work.  For some reason it seemed easier to ignore my mess because it seemed too great.  Lesson learned.  It’s not easier to ignore it and work around it.  It is better to clean it up BEFORE it looks like mine did.  Anyway, I hope that encourages some of you, who, like me, might be letting the mess control your life.  It is so easy to let the monster of “not enough time” rule the house … but in reality the actual cleaning takes less time than me thinking of reasons I shouldn’t clean it today!