Give Up The Laundry Chair: The Space-Saving Storage Alternative For Small Apartments

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There's a joke that goes around home decorating circles from time to time. It suggests that your best coat hook is actually the chair by your bed (or some variation of that idea). And while many of us do use an armchair as a hanger, it's probably not an exaggeration to say that even more of us tap our favorite chairs for dirty laundry, whether it's ready to get washed or has a few wears left in it. Little do we know that the solution to this dilemma is, in fact, the coat hook. To put it more plainly, taking your mildly dirty duds off your chair and hanging them on something like the Optish coat rack from Amazon restores the chair to its natural function. 

While it's true that the tendency to toss your T-shirts into a chair can happen in any space, the habit really takes its toll on small homes. Space is already at a premium in Lilliputian-sized homes — and not just floor space. Furniture space is limited, too. Certain kinds of double-duty seating, like ottomans with built-in storage, lose some of their usefulness if you make them your dirty clothes hamper. Whether you buy an actual coat rack or find unique items to repurpose as stylish wall hooks, this solution gives you back some of that chair's usefulness.

Aside from this, clutter itself makes a space look smaller, even if it's not. However, things look far worse if you do have a dearth of organizational space on top of laundry clutter. Unfortunately, this is a system that also seems to become self-perpetuating. The more dirty clothes clutter you throw on the chair, the less space you have to store other items, or even to, you know, actually sit.

On its own, this laundry storage solution does a lot, particularly if you get a rack that includes multiple hooks on a single bar. It's an ideal place to toss clothes you've worn already but that you might wear again before washing — the pieces that aren't quite ready for the hamper. Hanging a couple coat racks up gives you the option to keep things organized or even sort your laundry ahead of time. For example, one rack could be for jeans you've worn a few times but still have a few wears left. Another rack becomes a place for your towels to dry and wait until laundry day. A third one gives your lingerie and undergarments a temporary home if you might wear them again. 

And speaking of lingerie, why not hang a few mesh laundry bags on the hooks? Mesh bags protect lingerie from getting snagged in the washing machine. If you use them in your wash, putting your nighties in the hanging bags on the coat rack saves you a step. It also frees up hooks because multiple pieces of lingerie can be stashed in a single bag instead of each piece taking up a separate hook.

Finally, adding hanging baskets to the hooks does more than just give your laundry area a decorative flare. Small, loose items, can be bound together and tossed into a basket to prevent them from getting lost or missing your next laundry session. This also keeps them off the floor — a pet peeve for many — and out of sight until laundry day. Think of these bins as mini stylish laundry baskets you need in your home.