Friday, January 14, 2011

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!

8 comments:

Jenn Calhoun said...

Switching to cloth helped us control the blow-outs too!

For what its worth, we throw our bum genius covers and liners into the dryer... haven't had any problem with them yet (7 months and counting!)

Anonymous said...

You could put some of those 3M sticky things above your bathtub lining. Then hang a rope/twine laundry line on them. Throw the diapers over and WALAH a place to dry. When not in use take one end and place it on the other hook.
This way you can still shower without getting tangled and any drips will go downt he drain. :)
Just a thought. Love cloth diapers!

Anonymous said...

oh, I also dried mine in the dryer. No problems for me either.

Erin VT said...

I am curious to see what you come up with. You always have such great ideas.:) I am not trying to go against the other comments, but we dried ours in the dryer and when Brody was 18 months they started leaking horribly. Cotton Babies was gratious enough to take them back and give us a partial credit towards a new set, but they did say not to dry them. The dryer heat causes them to slowly wear down. Just an FYI!:)

Jess said...

Totally doing this when my wipes run out!!! Love this!!!

Caroline @ The Feminist Housewife said...

We had the exact same experience with disposables and cloth diapers definitely solved our blow out problems!!! Especially once they fit him well!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post, it is great

Mary Q Contrarie said...

I recommend that instead of trying to add a line into your laundry nook that you add a portable clothes drying rack into your life. The nice thing about this rack is you can put it where ever makes sense. I often dry things overnight in the middle of the living room. During the day our bedroom doesn't have any usage so the rack goes in their for day loads. When the weather is really nice I am lucky enough to be able to take it out on the deck and let the sunshine do it's awesome brightening thing.