Declutter And Add More Storage Space To Your Kitchen With A Laundry Room Staple

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The lowly trash can with a lid has a number of redeeming benefits, including keeping your garbage out of sight. Tilt-out laundry cabinets, on the other hand, hide your dirty laundry just fine, behind a pullout door with a bin, no less. And it takes home storage and organization one step further because of its cabinet design. The unit's bins hide laundry, while the cabinet's countertop gives you a place to stash laundry detergent and folded socks. As a savvy home DIYer, you've probably already connected the dots and asked yourself why not just use a laundry cabinet in the kitchen for garbage? Why not, indeed?

Before you can understand why this could help to expand your kitchen storage options, you should first know something about its construction. Some tilt-out laundry cabinets, such as the VECELO tilt-out laundry hamper, have only one tilt-out door, while others, like the Mepplzian white double tilt out laundry hamper, feature two. Both types include a door with an unseen "foot" at the bottom that tilts forward when the door is opened. This function is thanks to a hinge that's fastened to the point where the door and its foot meet. The laundry basket stands on the "foot," as it were, ready to eat up your grubby T-shirts.

Some of these units can also come with a small drawer that's just above the door. It's the place you'd put your laundry pods, sewing kit to darn socks, and the like. Because the drawer is part of the cabinet, and the cabinet is basically vertical storage, its footprint is small, an important consideration if you live in a small space.

With these pieces, it's easy enough to swap out the laundry basket and replace it with a trash can. Because of this, it plays an important role in free-standing kitchen setups, where features like islands aren't built in. If you've ever lived in an apartment that was created thanks to a large home being broken up into smaller units, you'll understand how useful a storage and decluttering option like this is.

Additionally, since it's a cabinet, it brings all of the features of a cabinet with it. For example, if you've wanted to add a coffee bar feature to the kitchen, you can use the top of the laundry cabinet as a countertop for the DIY coffee station, while at the same time, giving your trash a place to hide in the cupboards below. And given that some of these pieces have an odor-control feature, you never have to worry about the smell of your garbage ruining the aroma of your java.

Finally, if a double cabinet doesn't have enough storage space, you have a couple of options. The first is to buy a second unit. If you need only a little storage, a single cabinet should do it. Or, if you think that'll take up too much floor space, look into laundry cabinets that offer the same tilt-out door feature but also add an upper cabinet to the design, like the Virubi tilt-out laundry cabinet does. In this style of cabinet, you'll find an upper cabinet with two shelves where boxes of trash bags, extra coffee, or even dishes and mugs can reside.