Some friends of ours recently purchased a new-to-them home and have been doing lots of work on it. And they’re doing a great job, what I have seen so far is lovely. She did say she would welcome any suggestions for her laundry room, which was dreamy to me, it’s bright and above ground with an actual floor instead of dirt… Not to complain about mine, I am the one who chose to move ours to the unfinished basement. Anyway, hers is galley style with the washer and dryer on one side and a closet on the other. At the end of the laundry area, there is a hallway going left and right. There isn’t any floor space for storage, but there is lots of wall space both in the hallway and above the washer and dryer.
So here are some ideas I came up with (I hope you like Ikea!):
First, for above the washer and dryer, some open shelving all the way up the wall would help. The utilities are set off from the wall a bit to allow for plumbing, so deep shelving would be helpful up there with some extra large baskets to keep things organized. The photo above shows floating shelves, which you can get at Ikea for $15 for 3.5 feet or $20 for just over 6 feet. For something deeper than those, though, you can get boards and metal brackets from the home improvement store for about the same price.
For another option in that area, if the washer and dryer are stackable (didn’t really notice the machines), they could be stacked and a base kitchen cabinet could be put in the spot where the dryer currently is. Counter space could be left on top and then an upper cabinet (maybe even a cute medicine cabinet!) could be mounted to the wall, just as in a kitchen. Then a wall shelf could be added above the upper cabinet, spanning the whole area for extra (seasonal?) storage. Similar to the picture below, only without the cabinet built around the washer and dryer—that’s an unnecessary expense in my opinion.
Or just an open shelf next to the washer and dryer with pretty baskets.
I recommend taking full advantage of wall space in small rooms, even when the space is too narrow for shelves. One of my favorite options for wall storage in any room are these $3 rails from IKEA. Each of the accessories that go with it are under $5 each, so you can have a whole wall of very shallow storage for really cheap.
Everything in the picture above is under $20. They sell hooks for the rails so you can hang brooms or dusters, or anything with a handle or hole on the end. The hooks on the top right are actually toilet paper holders, but they cost $1 and they will hold about 5 hangers each, great for hanging clothes right out of the dryer.
Originally, I recommended a wall mounted, drop down ironing board (they can be so nice!), but then I saw the price… I would still recommend though, the traditional ironing board and iron hanger.
So there are some of my laundry room ideas for you. Anyone else have laundry room tips to share?
Doreen
July 17, 2012 at 2:23 amHi Christina! I have to say that in both our cabin and primary home, I really don’t like our laundry room. In fact, calling them laundry rooms is a stretch. Someday, I want a ‘big girl’s laundry room and I will definitely use some of these ideas.
onshore
July 17, 2012 at 6:37 amWhy are all the modern washers and dryers so plump? I’m used to the straight front surface, so the plump ones look really huge.
Love the mirror ball on the first photo 🙂 Also I like the easily achievable look of the first and last photo.
We have separate wire baskets for different washes. We have light coloured warm wash, darks warm wash and then hot wash. Then we also have a small basket for hand washed items. I like this system, you can immediately see if you have one load of laundry in the basket or not. This system also means that I don’t have to sort my laundry just before washing. I sort them as dirty clothes accumulate. So that’s my tip.
Anonymous
July 30, 2012 at 1:16 amI meant to write sooner – thanks so much for the post – I feel like a celebrity! But beyond that, it was very helpful! I love the floating shelves and the cute baskets. Here’s to mustering up some design talent!