Laundry Room Gets a Makeover!

Laundry today…or…Naked Tomorrow!
It’s finally finished…let the unveiling begin! As promised, one laundry room complete with built-in cabinets! I shared my story last week of how I was folding towels when our shelving above the washer and dryer came flying down and landed on my chest, shoving me into the wall. I thought lemons, why not lemonade ;-) I reached up and kindly helped the rest of the wire shelving release from the wall showing the shelving its new home in the garage floor, then I got to work designing a new space complete with laundry room cabinets and tons of great storage.
Let’s face it, the laundry room was not high on our list of projects, but now that I had been attacked, the laundry room’s ranking moved to #1 on my list. We started planning by asking how much time we spent in the room, defined our work zones to include places for both dirty and clean clothing and designed the new flow. We made sure to include plenty of space for functional laundry room cabinets. After all, if it’s efficient, it will stay clean – right? ;-)
Breaking it down we started by assessing our laundry room habits, designing the room to reflect our lifestyle and simplify our laundry routine. Completing this task showed we lacked sufficient space for sorting, folding and organizing our laundry. Our work space planning defined four zones, a place for dirty clothes, a clean area that includes plenty of hanging and folding space, storage for cleaning products, and finally the washer and dryer.
Open laundry room cabinets for basket storage gave us space for the dirty clothing. We designed this space to the left of the washer. Building in this area allowed us to have three baskets for soiled clothing for a whole week. I can actually treat clothing and store until the wash cycle starts – A big plus when you only have a couple of pieces for special laundry requirements.
We then designed the clean space area. Directly over the open laundry room cabinets that hold the baskets we created a tiled counter for folding clothes. This space allows us to fold directly from the dryer, no more carry to the bed and never fold them routine for this house (come on – we all do it ;-) )

We also added two hanging bar areas – one over the top of the washer/dryer unit to hold empty hangers, and the other to the right of the dryer to hold freshly laundered clothing that I hang right out of the dryer – NO MORE Wrinkles – Well on the laundry that is!
We installed wainscoting on the walls at a rather tall height and installed oil rubbed hanging hooks to use for hanging special pieces that are not dryer friendly. On the back of the door we included over the door hangers for an ironing board and iron.
Above the washer and dryer we created laundry room cabinets that formed cubby storage. This created a great place for extra baskets to hold out of the way items (and my painting/garage clothing), and solvents used in our home. We even added an extra shoe cubicle for those days when no one can reach the closet door in front of them! After all a home needs extra storage, even if it is for shoes!
Because our villa is smaller living we wanted our laundry room cabinets to take advantage of every square inch or workable space. Using various shelving, storage, and laundry baskets we maxed our storage needs. Hubby is even in the process of installing a last feature where our IPhone's, IPad, and Kindle will live and re-charge themselves daily. So, if that wire shelf would have never fallen, we would have never have thought about redesigning our laundry room, after all it’s not like it’s a kitchen, but this new design has made our laundry chore bearable!
Please leave us some comments and let us know what you think about the new design. If you have an idea you would like to share we would love to converse.
Happy Weekend and remember, laundry today…or…naked tomorrow!
The finished Laundry room built by Hello I Live Here
Wire rack that tried to impale me!
Wire Racks gone!
Building the cube system
Installing the basket holders
Tiling the folding table
The finished laundry room
Wainscoting installed
The finished room
Linda Crandall
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Sally-Charles Evans Sally-Charles Evans on May 04, 2016
    Very nice! All the empty hangers above the machines...where do you hang them with clothing on them? I missed that part.
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  • Sharon Sharon on Feb 01, 2015
    I have that wire rack and am also beginning my layout for replacement! I love you plan, thank you for sharing.
  • Cyndi Moore Tippett Cyndi Moore Tippett on Feb 23, 2015
    My laundry room is next... I need to finish my kitchen renovation..... love your idea... going to copy, copy, copy....
    • Linda Crandall Linda Crandall on Mar 02, 2015
      @Cyndi Moore Tippett Please do :-) Enjoy You will find the full post on our blog at HelloILiveHere.com
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