Home Sweet Mess

I am blessed with a large laundry room. This room is an answer to prayer. When my husband and I were first married, we lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment (I refer to it as the shoebox) with a stacked washer and dryer in a closet. Those appliances were referred to as “apartment sized,” as though people living in a small space wear fewer clothes than the rest of the world. Perhaps we should, but that’s another topic. I should have been glad that I had the ability to wash clothes without dragging them to a laundromat, but I wanted more. Not a laundry closet, but a laundry room. That would be the pinnacle of success, I thought. A place to keep things corralled. A way to keep my home neat. My journey to a beautiful home would begin with a place to store my supplies of Tide.

When we moved to our first house, we got our first laundry room, just large enough for a full-sized washer and dryer. The only access to that room was through the bathroom, which was a little awkward, but it was a start. It was in that home that we began growing our family, with first one, then two boys. As the mountains of laundry grew, I dreamed of a larger room in which to stash the dirty clothes between washes. Space to keep the Costco-sized detergent necessary for our messy life. Maybe even shoes and boots, sort of like a mudroom. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

So we moved again, needing a bedroom for son number two and soon thereafter, son number three. This time, we got a laundry room large enough to contain not just the two appliances, but also a sink! There was no room for a trash can, but at least we didn’t enter through the bathroom. Soon, however, even this room wasn’t big enough. Cleaning supplies spilled out of the room and into the kitchen, the bathroom, the garage, anywhere we could find a spot. Shoes piled up in the hallway. Maybe a laundry room wasn’t enough. Perhaps a laundry casita?

I dreamed of a room big enough that everything could be put away. Cabinets large enough for detergent and cleaning supplies. Countertops big enough to fold clothes. And space for an ironing board (should I ever decide to iron). And finally, almost ten years ago, we moved into our current home–with a laundry room as big as my childhood bedroom. (That’s not much of a comparison, actually, but for a laundry room it’s pretty large.) And yet…it is a mess. In fact, it’s messier than any other laundry room I’ve ever had. The mess seems to grow exponentially compared to the size of the space available. Cabinets overflowing with supplies. Counters unseen under piles of who knows what. Enough floor space to set up an ironing board, if it weren’t covered with shoes and bags and dirty sheets. The rest of my home is relatively clean, but the laundry room defeats me.

The reason for this escapes me, except that multiple friends, upon seeing the state of my laundry room (and you have to be a pretty close friend to get there), blurted out “This room makes me like you better!” I’m not sure what it is about me that requires a messy laundry room to be more lovable, but I’ve decided to embrace it. Don’t believe me? Come see my laundry room!