Get Your Laundry Room Organized With An IKEA LACK Hack

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Piles of clothes on the floor, detergent bottles scattered across every empty surface, and laundry baskets constantly overflowing — if your laundry room looks anything like this, it is clearly time for a makeover. However, the truth is that not everyone has hundreds or thousands of dollars lying around for a remodeling project. Luckily, there are many clever IKEA hacks to optimize your laundry room space and one involves the brand's LACK side table. If you're wondering how a simple table could help bring order to the chaos in your laundry room, the answer lies in using these tables to create a budget-friendly basket organizer that keeps everything neatly stored in one place.

All you will need for this project is four to eight side tables from IKEA in your preferred size and color. You may also need some brackets, screws, and either a drill or a screwdriver to stabilize the structure. At this point, you may be wondering how this is any better than simply buying a shelving unit. For one, this is a more cost-effective alternative, as a shelving unit from IKEA's KALLAX collection costs from $80 to $120. While it is possible to find cheaper alternatives, those often compromise on durability and may not fit within your available space. In contrast, a single small LACK table costs approximately $10, which means that if you use six LACK tables for this project, the total cost comes up to about $60. Additionally, with two sizes for the side table, you can customize your basket organizer to fit any room.

The core idea behind this hack is quite simple: stacking the side tables together to create a cube shelving structure that fits your laundry baskets. However, before you do that, you need to figure out which side table works best for your available space and laundry basket size. The small IKEA LACK's side table is around 14 inches wide and high. This means that if you have an empty wall that is around 43 inches wide, you can buy six tables and stack three on top of the other three. The problem is that not every laundry basket will fit underneath the smaller tables. In this case, using four of the larger IKEA LACK tables ($17), which are slightly larger than 21 inches wide and high, will keep the project budget-friendly and get the job done.

Now that you know which side table you're going to use, it's time to assemble your new laundry organizer (if you plan to paint the side tables to match your decor, do this before assembly). Depending on your room's capacity and the number of tables you choose, you can arrange this simple laundry room storage solution in either a horizontal or vertical layout. What matters most is stabilizing the structure well enough so that if you accidentally bump into it, it won't fall apart. You can do this by using L-shaped shelf brackets to secure the legs to the table below.

Because the mountains of clothes and linens never seem to end, a simple laundry basket organizer is a great way to free up as much floor space as possible to keep the room decluttered and  comfortable. But there are many more laundry room design and decor tips that can help you get into the habit of keeping things clean, tidy, and well-sorted. One easy way to do this is by labeling your laundry baskets and designating each one for a specific type of laundry, for instance, lights, darks, delicates, towels, etc. These cute clip-on chalk basket labels from Badigo will keep the mess under control and keep laundry sorting mistakes at a minimum. 

You can also repurpose plastic cups or glass jars as storage containers for clothespins and other small items around your laundry room. If you need to air-dry clothes or keep delicate items from getting snagged inside a basket, hang a shower curtain tension rod in the laundry room armed with plenty of hangers. Finally, don't forget to decorate your laundry room, making it as inviting and colorful as the rest of your home. This can have a huge impact on how you feel about the chore itself, making it far less stressful.