Steps To Clean ‘Laundry Room’

Steps to ‘Clean & Clear’ Your Laundry Room

To me, the bathroom is the *worst* room in the entire house … The laundry room is the second worst room. As with the bathroom, I struggle with getting this cleaned each and every time I do it but, luckily, I have gotten it down to a simple science.

The steps I use when cleaning and clearing my laundry room are fairly close to the ones I use for my bathroom. Do only as much as you can without feeling too stressed. You can finish up where you leave off later – although, I prefer to do this all at once and just get it over with. But … Don’t stress yourself out!

As I step into my small laundry room, I know this room won’t take long. It’s only about 6′ x 8′ and the stackable washing machine and dryer take up most of that area with my main sorting baskets/laundry cart unit on the other side. My sorting cart is one of those 2-section sorting carts that has a closing lid so I can also put a folding mini-ironing board on top with another basket that adds a finishing touch and practicality of a third sorting basket. You can find one of these most anyplace. I found mine at Walmart for around $68.00 plus shipping and it works perfectly for my space and needs. I also have the added convenience of enough space above my washer and dryer so that I can store my empty laundry baskets (that I carry around) on top of my stackable laundry machines (my laundry baskets nest inside of each other and I can fit 4 of them up there before touching the ceiling). I have also added a wall cabinet and got it hung up (over my laundry sorter cart) that touches the ceiling and comes halfway down the wall to help with storage in this room. With 2 teenagers in the house, I always have laundry that needs to be done, so, here are my steps to cleaning and clearing the laundry room. And, again, we’ll work top-down so that we don’t get things even dirtier since there is a toilet in this room, also.

  • I put a load of laundry into the washing machine because it can be going while I’m working on the rest of the room.
  • After getting the load of laundry into the washing machine, I pick up the rest of the clothes laying on the floor and put them into the sorting baskets. The clothes don’t always seem to make it to the sorting baskets – not sure how that happens, but clothes have a way of growing on the floor, it seems. In my sorting basket/cart unit, I have 3 baskets for each of these types of clothes: whites (I wash these in hot water), darks or colors that bleed (I wash these in cold water), and ‘good’ clothes (I wash these in warm or cold water, depending on the types of materials in the basket).
  • I grab my Windex and wipe down my laundry room mirror. I also wipe down the front of the washing machine and the dryer (since they have smudges on their large round see-through doors. After that, while I’ve got my cleaning rag and Windex out, I wipe down the door handles (both sides). This is something that most people don’t do, but it only takes 1 minute so I do both handles.
  • Next, I take everything off the pedestal sink, spray it with my Scrubbing Bubbles and wipe it all down. Normally, there is only a soap dispenser on this so it’s not hard to clean off and wipe down. Then, I go down to the entire base and clean that the same way.
  • Next, comes my least favorite part of the bathroom … the toilet. I use Scrubbing Bubbles to spray this all down entirely and I go through several rags on the toilet, alone, because it is such a dirty thing. You should start at the top and work your way down – otherwise, you contaminate the cleaner part and it defeats the purpose of cleaning. So, the tank, is your starting point. I actually start with the handle first and then go to the top of the tank and work down. When you’re done with the tank, get a new rag and start on the toilet lid and then the seat. After that, get a new rag and do the outside of the bowl and base.
  • When the outside of the toilet is all done, I work on the inside of the toilet. I shoot toilet bowl cleaner under the rim, scrub it around with the toilet brush, and let it stand for 10 minutes.
  • While the toilet is getting sanitized, I wash my hands and move everything off of the laundry room floor.
  • After everything is removed from the laundry room, I take a clean rag and use a disinfecting solution to clean the bathroom floor. Since my laundry room is so small, it only takes me a few minutes to thoroughly clean it on my hands and knees.
  • When that’s done, I simply re-scrub the toilet and flush, and shut the lid.
  • After this, I take the garbage out of the garbage can and put a new liner in.
  • My final touch is to add new hand towels to the towel holders.

Now everyone has a different set-up of their laundry room so you can easily customize this to fit and make it work for you. The main thing is now you can sit back and enjoy it knowing that you made this room sparkle! 🙂