Nothing makes the chore of doing laundry enjoyable quite like a beautiful, spacious laundry room complete with organized storage and decor. But if you’re living in a home with a small laundry room, or even a laundry closet, you probably don’t know the feeling. It’s tough to think of laundry as anything but a chore when you’re juggling a hamper full of dirty clothes, a stack of clean ones, and a whole slew of supplies in a space that makes even a half-bathroom look spacious. But that doesn’t mean you have to hate laundry. With the right storage and a few great small laundry room ideas, you can transform your small laundry room from a dirty mess to the clean spot it’s meant to be.

10 Small Laundry Room Ideas

Use Every Inch of Wall Space (But Keep it Flat)

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It’s tempting to turn the walls in your small laundry room into a home for shelves, but this could make the already cramped space feel claustrophobic. Instead, opt for a system that makes a bit more sense. Try hooks if you want to keep a classic ironing board, and hang it on there. If you’d rather have space to hang your clothes, attach a pegboard instead.

Or Optimize Your Wall Space for Fold-Outs

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For those feeling more ambitious, some of the best small laundry room ideas involve taking that wall space to a new level. Mount a fold-out ironing board to keep all of your laundry tasks centralized, and store your iron higher up on the wall nearby (just make sure it has room to cool down). If you’d rather have drying space, you can easily mount drying racks to your walls that fold out when you need them.

Keep an Eye Out and a Space Open for Missing Socks

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Speaking of missing socks, your laundry room is probably where they’re hiding–and where their match belongs. You could stick your mismatched sock in a drawer to inevitably be lost and forgotten, but you’re better off keeping it as close as possible to its match. Hang a small basket from the wall, and put mismatched socks in there temporarily. When you find the match, you’ll know exactly where you put it.

Make Your Small Laundry Room a Multi-Purpose Space

Image Source: Amazing Interior Design

Having a space just for laundry, especially in a small home, can feel wasteful. If you’re tight on space, an effective way to get the most out of your laundry room is giving it more purposes. One of the best ways to get more purpose out of your small space is to make your laundry room a mud room off a side entrance or back entrance to your house. It will keep all the dirt in one part of the house and give you an easy reminder to clean coats, backpacks, and shoes, as an added bonus. Or if you’re a truly extra pet owner, turn your sink into a pet shower and make the room your pet’s personal day spa.

If a mud room doesn’t suit your home, combining your laundry room with a secondary bathroom works well, too. You may also find that this layout makes more sense for plumbing setup.

But remember that if you do move your laundry room’s location, the change is permanent. Moving your laundry room, or even moving your washer and dryer, requires rewiring, shifting the plumbing, and potentially even taking down some walls. Before you decide to move it, make sure you’re prepared for that commitment.

Raise Your Washer and Dryer to Gain Storage Space

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Raising your washer and dryer might just be the best gift you could ever give your back. Crouching and getting on your knees to reach your front-load washer and dryer isn’t fun, and there’s plenty of wasted space when leaving your washer and dryer directly on the floor. Pedestal drawers are an easy fix for this: they go directly underneath your washer and dryer (and can support its weight no problem), and are great storage spots for cleaning supplies, extra towels, or anything that you don’t mind getting a little warm from the dryer.

Or Minimize the Lost Space Entirely By Stacking

Image Source: Designer Appliances

If you’re really tight on space, stacking your washer and dryer can be the perfect way to make the most of what you’ve got. And as an added bonus, you’ll only have to lift your clothes vertically when moving them from washer to dryer–no awkward shuffling necessary.

But this isn’t one you should try on your own. Leave moving your heavy washer and dryer around to the Helpers at Dolly. We’ll connect you to local pickup truck owners who are ready to help with the heavy lifting, whether it’s just readjusting your laundry room appliances, bringing home a new washer or dryer from the store, or taking your old ones to the dump.

Save Your Dryer and Your Home with a Lint Basket

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In case you didn’t already know, lint buildup in your dryer is a huge fire hazard (not to mention annoying). You could just toss unwanted lint in a wastebasket, but reusing it might be a more environmentally friendly path. Put a small basket in your laundry room (ideally far from the dryer) and store excess lint there. Next time you’re going camping or even warming up the fire pit, make use of the lint as an easy, free fire starter.

Use a Tension Rod to Make Hanging a Breeze

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If you’re a closet aficionado and would rather hang everything than fold, having adequate places to hang your clothes in your laundry room is essential. One of the easiest ways to get the most hanging space is by hanging a tension rod across the walls, just like you would use to hang a curtain. Leave your hangers on the rod while your clothes wash, and when they’re dry, you can easily hang them without having to drag loads of laundry back and forth to your closet.

No Cabinet Space? No Problem

Image Source: Amazing Interior Design

Small laundry rooms (especially laundry closets) are notorious for missing one very important feature: cabinets. With nowhere to store your items, it becomes a hassle to keep your detergent and other laundry supplies anywhere but on top of your dryer. Enter your solution: the IKEA Råskog cart. This supply shelf on wheels is big enough to fit everything you need, from detergent to bleach to extra linens, and rolls away and out of sight when the laundry’s done.

Get Extra Folding Space with a Hanging Sweater Organizer

Image Source: Bob Vila

You’ve probably used one of these organizers in your closet at some point, but using them in your laundry room gives them a whole new purpose. Mount a few hooks for this on the wall. Then, as you finish folding pieces of laundry, place them in the organizer. When the folding’s done, simply take the organizer off its hooks and carry it to your closet. No towering piles of laundry, and more folding space for you.

One of the easiest small laundry room ideas? Get some help rearranging, or even bringing home new laundry machines, from Dolly. We’ll match you with a local pickup truck owner who’s ready to do some lifting and will set you up for success in your new and improved laundry room. All you’ll have to worry about is finding that missing sock.