Help! I Can't Find My Washing Machine!

From birth it seems I've been a messy person.  Don't believe me ?  Just ask my mom, I'm sure she'd be happy to share with you all of her exasperated attempts to get me organized and keep me organized when I was young.  Or, you could just open one of my closets and look in...or worse yet take a peek at the current condition of my laundry room... 

My washer and dryer surrounded with dirty and clean clothes, mops and brooms shoved between, and that's my utility tub beneath the overflowing clothes basket.

Laundry room closet (pretty scary huh?) filled with shirts to iron, stuff to go to goodwill, laundry basket of single socks (where do they disappear too??? UGH!) with misc. items piled on top, work out videos, stuff I didn't no where else to put, etc... Yikes!  This room and closet need desperate help!!!

Why air my dirty laundry in public?  Well, I thought about just simply sharing with you in words about my journey to organize and redo my laundry room and then only posting the final pictures when I was all done.  But then you really wouldn't have any idea on just how bad it is.   I also thought about sharing a pic. from a messy laundry room that I came across on this cute blog: A Scrapbook of Me: Laundry Room Ideas I found while I was searching on google for organizing ideas.  After thinking on it, I decided it would be better if I were just honest with you and myself about the desperate condition of the room!  Besides just knowing you know will keep me accountable to get this project done.  And that would make my husband really, really happy!  My mom too!

Now that I've shared with you the embarrassing condition of this small room I'm hoping some of you might help me come up with ideas on how to get this room organized.

Here are some things my husband and I have considered so far:

1) Taking the doors off of the closet and putting in some sort of organizing system (inexpensive one).  Which  would include:
                       a) Shelves for laundry baskets:  atleast five
                       b) A place for dirty laundry: could be another shelf & laundry basket
                       c) A clothes rod for out of season jackets (maybe) and/or shirts that
                           need ironing
                       d) Shelves for Storage baskets for misc. items such as lonely socks
                       e) A place for my vacuum cleaner would be a bonus (it just takes up
                           floor space now)
  
* Here is the current dilema with the closet situation:  behind the utility sink is a wall and behind the wall is the closet.  If I wanted shelves back in there would I be able to access them?  If not then I think my only solution is to have a closet rod that sticks a little past the opening so I can access the hanging clothes.  What do you think?

2)  My husband is considering removing a cabinet from above the utility sink and put up a rod to hang things that need to be ironed.  I'm debating about the loss of the cabinet, because it is full after all.  It would look something like this, but without the cabinet above it:

http://www.generalcabinets.com/ laundry_rooms.htm

3) I would like to be able to have a place to dry delicates.  Right now my only option is to lay sweaters and things that need to lay flat on the washer to dry.

4) I currently have my ironing board and iron hanging on the wall adjacent to my washer and dryer.  This works fine now, but I'm wondering if there is a better option...

5) Perhaps painting the cabinets and trim white (like in above pic.), along with a cheery color on the wall (like below pic.)?

www.houzz.com/ ideabooks/26969/ list/ 10-Tips-f...om-Better

Wow, I love the cheeriness of this one but don't think it's the right color for me!  What a contrast compared to my current laundry room!!!  I'm starting to get excited!  Time for me to get off the computer and start sorting and getting rid of the mounds of unneeded stuff in my laundry room.  For that I'm going to grab some garbage bags: one for goodwill, one for the garbage, and one for putting away in another room.  Wish me luck and I'll let you know how things are going in a few days.