Laundry Room Organization {Fall Cleaning}

Good Morning and Happy Thursday! I'm sorry for the blog silence yesterday - but after I stayed up until 2 am watching our president give his acceptance speech, normal activity was very limited yesterday. In full disclosure, I actually took a little power nap between Mitt Romney's concession speech and the President's speech, but I was still barely awake yesterday. But, today, I am back with not one, but TWO awesome posts for you - both about organization! (Quick Note: Due to unforeseen issues with an older compuer not allowing viewing of types of photos, a second totally awesome organization post will go up tomorrow, not today. I apologize!) This morning, I'm going to show you how I recently organized our laundry room and then, this afternoon, I will show you how we found a way to use our guest bathroom effectively for some extra storage. But now, without further ado (or, you know, me babbling), let's get started with the laundry room organization...

This is what our laundry room used to look like. For the record, I'm more concerned about the shelves, than the machines - because the clothes move eventually after they've been washed and folded. Wondering where in our apartment the laundry room is?

It's right off of our kitchen! And we almost always keep the door shut, because it frequently becomes a dumping place on and around laundry day...

It isn't a pretty room, but since we're not going to be living in this apartment for the rest of our lives, I'm not too concerned about it. I'm also just really glad we have our own laundry room. Unfortunately, up until about a week or so ago, this is what the shelves looked like...


Look at the mess! And the worst part was that getting to anything when I needed it was such a pain. The laundry room shelves had become a dumping place for miscellaneous and rarely used items, and finally, I had had enough. So, I headed to Walmart and picked up 4 canvas bins - 2 large and 2 small - and took items from the shelves above out of some of the ugly boxes and into the pretty canvas bins. I kept some of the smaller boxes - with my Swiffer supplies - but threw away bulky boxes wherever I could. 

With things put away in the pretty bins, I moved a few things around from shelf to shelf, until voila! - laundry room organizational bliss.


Ah... I love it. And to give you a slightly better view - here's a side by side comparison of the change:


I moved the toolboxes and my extra bags, and decided to store our never-yet-used-but-maybe-someday-we'll-need-it sleeping bag upright instead of laying down to add some extra space. I've also learned that while it may be cost-effective, buying in bulk is not space-effective when you live in a small apartment. 
How do you keep everything in your laundry room neat and organized? Have any of you been bitten by the organization bug lately? Something about getting ready for the Winter makes me want to organize!