Laundry Room Renovation
When renovations started on the bottom floor, we looked at rearranging the walls to better fit our needs, and the laundry room was a point of contention between my husband and me. He was adamant that we repurposed this space to enlarge our master bedroom, and I was adamant that it stay as is. I know from a resell standpoint he is probably right (shh don’t tell him I said that) because the master bedroom didn't have a large walk-in closet, some buyers would be turned off. It would also be nice to have enough space for a separate shower/bathtub, as opposed to one of those combo units or shower only which is what’s currently in there. Here is the thing; we don’t ever plan on selling, so from a functional standpoint leaving the laundry room as is made the most sense for us (mainly me since I’m the one that doesn’t everyone’s laundry). Carrying everyone’s laundry up and down the stairs all day seemed like a nightmare to me, and I wanted to have enough space to store cleaning products on both floors. Also, having a laundry shoot has always kinda been a dream of mine, and if we repurposed the space I would lose the one already installed. After weeks of debating, we decided to keep the walls as is, which made both my husband's pocketbook happy and me.
We started by gutting it and adding all-new insulation, drywall, and texture. We decided not to install crown moldings since the space is already so small. While I was waiting for the boys to finish all of that work, I went on the hunt for a new laundry room sink. I found an old ceramic sink that had been imported from England at a local architectural salvage shop. It was in pretty bad shape, so I got it for next to nothing. I have worked my magic on old sinks in the past, so I knew it would be worth the effort. I sanded the whole thing down, repaired all the cracks and chips with Bondo, and then repainted with my favorite Rustoleum epoxy tub & tile paint. I went on to build a wall mounted farmhouse style table for the sink to sit on, and I stained it in a dark walnut to match all the other wood in the house.
The room originally had cabinets over the top of the washer and dryer, but I felt it closed in the space too much. We decided to add wood shelving instead then stained it to match the table. I can be kind of a clothes hoarder, and a lot of it is hand wash only items, so I found a drying rack on amazon that will allow the clothes to drip dry into the sink. In the twenty years, my husband and I have been together, we have never purchased a washer dryer new, and we went back and forth over buying a set or just using the ones we already had. My husband wanted new, and since we had spent so much time and money making to room look so cute, we went decided to splurge. I hate seeing all the cords and tubes behind the machines, so I used a hack I found on Pinterest to cover it with wood.
Then it was time to start decorating, we replaced the fluorescent light with a cute star light I found on amazon. I got a rolling laundry cart like you would normally see in a laundromat to make it easier to transport everyone’s clean clothes to their rooms. We collected ice tea jugs, and glass jars to hold all my cleaning products. My husband thinks my jar obsession is crazy, but to me, it’s these little details that make the room feels more put together. We mounted hooks on the walls to hold the brooms and mops. At that point, I thought I was done but after spending a couple of weeks living with it, my husband thought it was missing something. He wanted to add art to the wall but left it to me to figure out what it needed. With the space being long and skinny I didn’t want to add anything that would sick out. I found these pretty floral wall decals to put on, it’s a little girly and would be totally overruled in any other room in the house, but in this room it just makes sense.
