When I say laundry room what I mean is laundry closet. We live in the blandest and most boring of rental houses as we save up for the house we hope to renovate. Which means my laundry closet probably looks similar to every laundry closet in suburban builder built subdivisions in the US: off white walls and a white wire shelf.

Here it is before we started.

Not much there to spark joy if you ask me. Something needs to spark joy, because we’re in the middle of Konmari-ing, going low waste and plastic, and trying to be frugal all wrapped into one. My husband jokingly called it “flipping our lives” and the name stuck.

First we gutted the place. Everything got moved out and then I cleaned the whole space. Once that was done, the washer and dryer got a good going over and then were moved back in.

Now the laundry accessories category had to be conquered. None of the chemical laden laundry supplies sparked any joy in me, all but the laundry detergent went. I’ve tried homemade laundry detergent before, and since we cloth diaper (and for the sake of marital harmony) we stuck with Ecover.

We already use wool dryer balls with our cloth diapers and I added homemade dryer sheets for some essential oils for scent in non baby loads. (I won’t buy essential oils from MLM type companies and I don’t use them on the kiddo or the kiddo’s things as I worry about exposure intolerance and don’t find them necessary for most things).

The dryer sheets are super easy to make, I cut up a few old  100% cotton flannel button ups headed for Goodwill. So far no fraying, even though I didn’t hem or serge them. Then into a glass jar following Hometalk’s recipe for dryer sheet juice. Back in college I had a BPAL addiction, and I still have a bunch of their essential oils. I picked a favorite that stopped working with my skin chemistry after pregnancy, and voila, the best smelling clothes ever!

Even better, I don’t hate doing laundry these days. Even though we aren’t anywhere near done with flipping our lives, this was a great step in making everything in my household run smoother.