DIY Diary: A Home Organizing Pro Shares Expert Advice on Decluttering

AD It YourselfDIY Diary: A Home Organizing Pro Shares Expert Advice on DeclutteringThe organizing expert Shira Gill helped kickstart my laundry room revival

By Zoë Sessums

January 11, 2022

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email

Fancy/Veer/Corbis

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email

Brought to you by LG

Photo: Gabrielle Pilotti Langdon

Hi, I’m digital design writer Zoë Sessums. Follow along each week as I try my hand at a DIY project in and around my house. I’ll cover the inspiration, expert advice, and step-by-step plans of everything from challenging builds to simple renovations. This month’s undertaking: A laundry room makeover!

When deciding how to transform my laundry room, the decor and aesthetic weren’t initially clear to me, but I knew the major problem of the space was that it was an organizational mess. The room had become part pantry, part linen closet, and extremely cluttered. Pillow cases were stacked with cat food cans and vintage tablecloths were crammed between detergents. I knew that, if I wanted to see the full potential of the space, I needed to call an expert. Enter: Shira Gill, the queen of minimalism and home organization. Gill has a mission to inspire people to clear physical and mental clutter, regardless of their budget, space, or lifestyle. Plus, she recently put out a book, Minimalista, which offers a complete toolkit for editing, organizing, and maintaining your own home. 

So, I embarrassingly sent Gill a photo of my laundry room disaster, and we met on Zoom for her to give me counsel. Luckily, she told me she’d seen worse (phew!) and asked me what I wanted out of the space. This is the first step in her toolkit—clarify: What do you want from the space you’re decluttering? I wanted to walk into my laundry room and get just what I need without things tumbling down on me. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief rather than feel a need to get out as soon as possible. I needed there to be some sense as to where things went. 

Next, we talked about the edit. If I was going to turn this ship around, I needed to take everything out of the room and only bring it back in if it was essential. Half-empty bags of stale chips could go and so could empty bottles of detergent that I was never going to reuse. We talked through a plan of organizing, so Gill didn’t have to watch me for hours as I decided what to keep. We decided that the best plan was sorting the items in the room into categories—with a laundry/household section, a pantry section, and a linen section. The sections would be organized vertically on shelves rather than in the random chaos they were in originally. Gill also sent me a list of containers, bins, and labels I could invest in to really elevate the space. 

It ended up being very refreshing to go through everything in my laundry room and see what I really wanted out of the space. It not only helped with my anxiety about the room, but let me have more fun in the aesthetic vision. I felt inspired to switch out the washer and dryer for an LG WashTower and continue the vertical shelving from floor to ceiling. Without purging too much stuff, I realized how much more space I gained and how much time I saved with some organization. I could see how easy this would be to actually maintain.

Shira Gill’s organization picks

I gave Gill the dimensions of my laundry room and the shelving, so she could find the perfect storage items to surround the washer and dryer. Check out her suggestions:

Laundry and household section

Open canvas bins: “You could use one for laundry supplies, one for pet supplies, and one for your backup household or cleaning supplies on top.”

Pantry section

Turntable: “For oils, cans, etc., on the bottom middle section.”

Airtight jars: “For pantry staples on the middle level of the middle section (you could order two sets and have a variety of sizes to work with).”

Large bin: “For less-used pantry staples and overflow on the top level of the middle section (order in size large).”

Linen section 

Open canvas bins: “You could use one for linens, one for washcloths, and one for the category of your choice.”

“Once you have edited, all you have to do is plop each category into the appropriate vessel, add labels if you like, and enjoy. I would also use custom labels. You could use the 1.25t x 2.25w size as inserts for the canvas bins, as adhesives for the airtight jars, and they can also be stuck onto this bin clip label for the wooden bin for your pantry.”

Check back soon for the makeover plan.

ExploreDIYAD It Yourselflaundry roomDIY diary