For I know the plans I have for you, laundry nook.

Is that a sacrilegious title to this post? It was the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about writing this.

With the addition of Caroline into our family, the amount of laundry we do on a regular basis has changed. Expanded. No surprises there! Clothes. Hers and ours. Burp cloths. Crib sheets. Blankets. Aaaandd diapers.

You know how I said we were holding off on cloth? Well, I lied. We'd been having blow out problems with all the various disposable options we have around the house. Pampers Newborns. Pampers 1's. Huggies 1's. All the same. So we tried cloth diapers once again. And what do you know? They fit. Barely. Our blow out problems haven't completely gone away, but we've seen a bit of an improvement thus far.

Obviously, the addition of cloth diapers into our lives increases the amount of laundry we have to do each week. However, we also need to figure out where to store them while dirty and where to line dry them once they're clean.

Remember our laundry nook? The shades we put up still work great for tidying up the area quickly. Actually, they just hide the mess. Still very useful. But now I'd like to take the space to the next level.

Here's where we're at now:

Messy (my fault!) and disorganized. It's a dumping ground for things like mittens, laundry soup, and the dog's leash. And then once the machines start up, some of the junk falls off to the sides or behind them. Awesome.

Here are our needs for the space:

1. Dirty diaper storage. We spray off the really dirty stuff after they're used, but we still need a spot to dump the yet-to-be-cleaned diapers before they're chucked into the washing machine.

2. Clothes lines. The Bum Genius folks recommend line drying the diaper covers (the inserts can go in the dryer) but as of now we've got nowhere to do that. Nowhere that doesn't involve hanging them over the backs of the chairs in our eat-in kitchen, that is.

3. Broom/mop storage. We already use the corners of the nook for that very purpose, and we'd like to keep it that way.

4. A big flat workspace. Right now I use the tops of the machines, but it's not a great option because stuff can fall off. Plus, it's not perfectly flat. I'd like to be able to use that space to do some folding, some storage, etc.

5. Organization. Right now we've got a mess of laundry-related supplies jammed up in the cupboards and sitting hapharazdly on top of the machines.

Quite the laundry list, huh? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Oh, and we need to keep it cheap.

Stay tuned to see what we come up with!