Laundry Room Decluttering

I was thinking about what kind of topic to write in this blog. I thought: how about practising my decluttering skills in my real house? Then a place popped into my mind: that small, and filled with many cleaning tools laundry room where I didn't want to go. 

2 years ago, my husband worked a period of cleaning job, in his job he had to buy his own cleaning tools and detergents. So in my house, there were more than one Windexes, mould killers, bathroom cleaners etc. My laundry room was filled with plenty of clean bottles around the sink and shelf. Slowly, I didn't use the sink often and I dumped some stuff in it. There is a toilet next to the laundry room, instead of going to the laundry room after the toilet, I walked to the kitchen to wash my hands. It makes me feel annoyed and frustrated. Eventually, It became messy and dysfunctional. 

So, it's time to declutter. The decluttering steps I usually use are:

1. Take all the stuff out of the room/shelf

2. Throw unwanted stuff

3. Catorgerise stuff

4. Clean the room 

5. Think about the functionality of each corner of the room and place it.

In this case, I want to make the sink back again and clean all the stuff from the cabinet. This was quite a hard beginning for me: I hadn't opened the cabinet for ages because there was a dead cockroach inside, and I didn't want to face the dirty cabinet. However, when I thought that "in the future, I might face dirtier cabinets or kitchens..." I must overcome that. So I opened it, quickly took all the stuff out, and swept that cockroach out! 

My laundry room is small, so it's fast and easy to take all the stuff out and I placed them on my dining table. Not surprised, there were plenty of spare clean tools and bottles. Do you know how many bottles of  Windexes I have? 5!! Also, I have 3 bottles of mould killers, it reminded me of a weekend when I was finding a mould killer in the supermarket. I even didn't want to check the laundry room before buying it. It was quite a frustrating moment for me, I blamed myself a little bit, but I knew I couldn't change the past, at least I can change now! So I decided about each stuff's future: stay or go. 

So for the spare tools, what should I do? This is the strategy of using my room: identify each space's function. 

A. The flat area of the sink
The detergents to help wash clothes and stuff. The hand wash after the toilet.

B. The top of the laundry machine

Laundry powder/liquid detergents, bleach(for clothes only)

C. Cabinant under the sink

Spare cleaning liquids, and car liquids, rarely use detergents. 

D. Cat toilet
I won't move it, my cats are getting used to this location 😆

E. The corner next to the cabinet
This is the only place I can put my floor mop and basket, and I tried this corner doesn't disrupt cabinet.

I don't put all my cleaning tools in my house here. Because I realised accessibility is quite an important point when I use each corner of my room. So I put only kitchen cleaning detergents in the kitchen cabinet: oven cleaner, and BBQ surface cleaner. Also, my bathroom has a few bottles of bathroom cleaning liquid. The most important thing is: that I know where they are. So it also needs me to test, and experience whether the strategy I am using is working or not, so let's see in the future how I think. 

There is a fun moment I want to share: where I found the container of the cabinet. I actually reused my unwanted cord organiser, when I decided whether it should go or not, I thought" This organiser probably can be used somewhere..." and I found it! I turned the lid of the organiser upside down, and it became a cleaning bottle container! Woohoo, I was so satisfied, it saved me time and money to find one in a store! 

It took me nearly three hours to finish decluttering and cleaning. I was exhausted and started to think about if for the real case, can I afford it? But I also felt very satisfied, and I know, this is my real passion. I will continue this journey.