The Handheld Sewing Machine from Urban Outfitters is a solution to those snags and tears. You can purchase it in red or black, and it’s only $15. This is also nice to have when friends or family stay for long periods of time, because you can quickly fix their clothes and be deemed the world’s best hostest in their eyes.

Its dimensions are 7”W x 1”D x 2.5”H, and it can run by battery or AC adapter. The handheld sewing machine includes three steel bobbins, two sewing needles, one threader and an extra spool pin. Now if you’re rushing to work and notice your hem is loose, you can fix it up in a jiffy.

The Rowenta DW9080 Steamium Iron has a one-touch steam and temperature selection LED display, an ergonomic design, steam on demand, automatic shut-off options and various steam and mist functions. Your ironing board doesn’t even have to be close to an electrical outlet, because this Rowenta model has a seven foot cord.

The pump injection technology enables you to direct more steam to a centralized location on your clothing, so you can say goodbye to wrinkles. This model also has a large water chamber, which allows you to get through more clothes at one time without feeling up so often. These features come in handy when you have a hectic life and a large family in need of freshly pressed clothes.

So how can you make your own starch at home? Well, all you need are two simple ingredients: cornstarch and water. Add one tablespoon of cornstarch to one pint of water and mix them together so the cornstarch dissolves. Since it’s easier to spray starch onto the areas where you need it the most, transfer the solution into a spray bottle. You can always keep the extra solution refrigerated in a separate container.

As you get older or busier with work, lugging your laundry down to the basement can seem like a horrible chore in itself, especially if you have several children with mounds of dirty clothes. Relocating the laundry room to the first floor in a large kitchen closet can reduce some of the hassles associated with washing clothes.

This closet pictured below has the washer and dryer as well as other cleaning supplies on high shelves where they are out of your children and pet’s reach. You can keep laundry moving while having breakfast with your family.

“This clever little invention will make drying your underwear convenient, discreet and classy. It can hang almost anywhere, includes 18 suspended clothing pins and can expand and contract to fit into any small space.”

In other words, you don’t have to hang your briefs (or Victoria Secrets) outside on the line in the yard for all the neighbors to admire.

The simple pine-wood dryer costs $24.

From the Conran Shop.

You don’t have to manually string lines up all over your house; just pick up an outdoor clothes drying rack.

The Whitney Design 3000 30-Line Outdoor Parallel-Style Clothes Dryer with Aluminum Arms (aside from having a very long name) makes efficient use of space, so even if you’ve got a small yard, you can dry your clothes outside.

And saving energy may not be the only perk:

“The benefits of air drying clothes are many–fabrics last longer, energy bills run lower, and clothes and sheets naturally smell better when hung outside–not to mention the health benefits of spending a few minutes outdoors in the sunshine.”

Pick up this unit for less than $70 at Amazon:

Whitney Outdoor Clothes Dryer

If you’d like a laundry sink to wash your delicates in that is a tad more… delicate, you might appreciate something like this cheerful floral piece.

The wall sink is from Purple Sage Collections, and it can be used in the laundry room, but it can also be used outdoors. You could mount it on the wall of your house or shed and use it for washing hands and tools after working in the garden.

The sink is made from ceramic and the patterns are hand painted. The faucet isn’t included, so you’d have to order that separately.

$662 at Plumbing Fixtures

This high-speed washing machine uses “TrueSteam™” to penetrate fabrics, providing an “enhanced cleaning performance” that supposedly “reduces allergens by more than 95% with LG’s exclusive Allergiene™ Cycle.”

Hey, it beats taking Clariton every day.

Other features of the $1,600 washing machine include an extra wide door opening, a larger load capacity (which can save time and energy since you get to do fewer loads), sensors that determine the amount of detergent and water hardness and make automatic adjustments to the wash/rinse process, and a SteamFresh™ Cycle that lets you refresh and reduce wrinkles in up to 5 garments at one time.

Available at Home Depot

You don’t necessarily want visitors who might be using your guest bathroom to have to watch your undies spinning around in the dryer. A solution is to get front-loading washers and dryers that can be hidden behind cabinet doors. When you look at the row of cabinets, you won’t even be able to tell there’s a laundry area there.

Other laundry room organization ideas (that can be implemented in a “hidden” fashion) include behind door ironing boards, cabinets to hold detergent and the like, and portable tables for folding clothes. If your washer and dryer are on the floor, you can incorporate counter space on top, adding to the natural cabinet look (just be prepared to bend low to put clothes in and out of the appliances).

For those of us living in small homes, it’s important to make the best use of space, and if you can hide the fact that you even have laundry facilities, even better!

The Delicair laundry basin from Aquatic Whirlpools offers “the perfect solution for delicate cleaning and care.”

The gentle bubbles are supposed to “lift away” dirt on knits and other delicate clothing items that normally require hand washing.

The Delicair basin doesn’t take up any more room than other laundry sinks, and features include an electronic control panel (what gadget fiend wouldn’t love a sink with a control panel?), air jets, and an automatic purge and dry cycle.

Aquatic Whirlpools