Cleaning Supplies and Broom Closet Organization

This post on organizing cleaning supplies isn’t one I had planned on creating for you, but I had cleaning supplies all over the house and got tired of running up and downstairs to find them. This post isn’t pretty, there’s no way to make a closet full of buckets, brooms, and assorted cleaners pretty enough for a blog, but its works so well I am sharing it with you.

The Broom Closet Before Picture

Here is the closet before picture, It does have hangers on the back for the brooms, a hanger for the vacuum hose and a long shoe organizer for odds and ends like Swifters and way too many cloth grocery bags. The two front facing baskets on the top shelf hold all my various cleaning, and dusting rags for our home, and the garage. Its not bad, but there isn’t room to consolidate all the cleaners in here.

For a cleaning closet, it doesn’t look too bad, unlike the large pantry I recently reorganized for baking,  but here’s my problem.

When I worked full time I bought and paid for whatever cleaners I wanted.  My system was to have an organized basket of cleaning supplies on each floor of our three-story home.  It worked well, but I am no longer working and am very busy blogging.  Hubs insists on purchasing singular bulk sizes, and only replacing items when they are all long gone.  I ended up having five separate locations and only one bottle of each product. I seemed to be constantly hunting for a silly bottle of Windex, or Pinesol, or vinegar, or whateve else. Frankly I am too old, too heavy, and just too darn busy to be “looking”.

The final catalyst was the city of Edmonton recently began a 3 pail garbage collection system that I need to find room for.

Time for a new plan.

How to  Control and Organize Cleaning Supplies and Be Done With IT.

Since this house already has a designated broom closet, I just need to figure out how to hoard everything into one tiny closet and leave the room under the sink for just the garbage cans.

Step one is to gather all the cleaners from the linen closet, under the sink, under each bathroom sink, the broom closet and in the basement laundry room.

Then I removed my garbage can and cleaner pull out organizers, washed and lined the cupboard under the sink and put in three garbages cans and a box soda.  The back of the cupboard door has organizers for the dish supplies. I stuffed in the three garbage cans and shut the door.

Starting with the broom closet, I took everything out and washed everything inside.

Time to tackle the cleaners, I had no duplicates but I would have combined any I had.  Most of the fabric shopping bags went to the thrift store, the rest I folded and placed in one of three containers in the top of the closet along with all my cleaning cloths.

DIY Small Custom Shelves

The shoe organizer went to the thrift store and I decided to replace it with a small set of shelves.  The shelves need to hide in the corner,  be sturdy, and hold as much as possible.  To make sure the shelves are the right dimensions instead of buying some, we built our own to fit exactly where I wanted them.

Shelf  Supplies

These shelves are basic, they were made with a leftover piece of coated fibreboard we used to make a craft table.  You can use 3/4 inch plywood or 1 by six lumber. The choice depends on what you have on hand and the size of your closet.

You will also need 16-  1 1/2  inch screws.

The first step was to get the measurements next from the inside of your closet.

Start with the height of the tallest cleaner bottle and added an inch (15″), This would give me the minimum height for the shelves.

Then I measured the depth of the closet (23″).   This would be the width of the shelving unit.

Next, I measured inside the closet from the wall to the closet door opening. (6″),   That gave me the maximum depth of the shelving unit.

A finally I measured the distance from the floor to the closet shelf (62″)  To give me the maximum height of the shelving unit.

The dimensions of my closet meant I could have four shelves 15 inches apart.

For our closet, we made the following cuts.

Two pieces for the sides, 60″ by 5.5″.

Four shelves 21″ by 5.5″.   (This allows 1.5 inches of width for the sides)

Somehow I lost the construction pictures, but here is a diagram of the shelves instead.

Each shelf was attached with two 1 1/2 inch screws.  The wood was predrilled first.  We did not glue it.

The shelves do not need to be very deep, to hold a variety of your cleaners.

As the cleaners can be heavy and I wanted the shelves secured.  We screwed the sides of the shelving unit into the wall on both ends.

Brooms, Mops and Vacuum Storage

The broom and mop organizers I have in our closet are five years old, I moved them from our previous home and they work very well.

The vacuum hose is hung on wire garden hose hanger, the implements are stored on the floor, and in a small wire shelf.  It’s not pretty, but these organizers have worked for me for several years.

Closet Lighting

You may have noticed the first picture was darker and the new ones quite glaring.  There is no light and no window anywhere near the cleaning closet so I purchased some battery operated lights.  It’s not an affiliate, but so far they are working very well.

These battery lights cost $7.00 in Lowe’s Canada.   I hung two lights inside the closet.  The lights aren’t really bright, but they do help and are easy to use.  To install you just hang them like a picture.