Laundry Room Makeover

A relative of mine has decided to sell her home and asked if I would help her fix it up before putting it on the market. Most of the home just needed to be "de-cluttered"; however, the laundry room had never had anything done to it since the house was built.

It is a large room that must have originally served as a pantry also. There were some original shelves on the back wall (that were now sagging and were propped up), a washer and dryer that would remain, and a small chest freezer that she no longer needed. A lot of clutter, and not much else.

The front wall held the mis-matched washer and dryer. For some reason cabinets were never added to the room.

It is a large laundry room and there were many possibilities, however, the budget was tight. We decided the one thing truly needed was a least one wall cabinet above the washing machine. That would be our main expense. We also decided that because the room was large we would add a folding table to the back wall.

First thing to do was remove everything in the room. We sorted it all into groups; craft items, paint supplies, tools, etc. To add a folding table the lowest wall shelf would need to be removed; but we would reuse it somewhere else.

The walls were already a soft sage green and the trim work white. The flooring was new. So we were using those as our colors and wood tones.

We needed to organize all the things she needed to store without spending much. We purchased cardboard boxes and trimmed them with paint, bits of ribbon, and labels.

The folding table was made from plywood with a whiteboard top glued to the plywood. The legs are 2 x 4's, screwed together, and the front is a 1 x 3. The folding table is also supported underneath with 2 x 4's screwed to three walls. The table is 3 1/2 feet deep x 7 1/2 feet long. Wonderful!

We painted everything white, including the two remaining wall shelves, and we used a shelf support to stop the sagging.

An old (and broken) Jenny Lind baby bed was cut up and made into a laundry basket holder. It fit perfectly under one side of the folding table. The heavier tools are stored under the other side. A small bookshelf would have been nice, but not in the budget.

An old dresser was stored in this room and was home to some of her craft items. We taped off the top and used two cans of spray paint on the bottom to give it a fresh look. A simple valence and white curtains were made for the two windows that were on the outside wall. She also had a wonderful stained glass window that we hung between the windows.

We moved out the chest freezer and found a small white bookcase (that was cluttering the living room) and moved it to the inside wall. It provided extra storage and wasn't very deep so it fit the space well.

On to the front, and main, wall. We purchased a simple white wall cabinet from Lowes, two 1 x 12 x 6 foot boards, shelf brackets (on sale for $1.30 each), and a can of wood stain, and 2 cans of white appliance epoxy spray paint (for the harvest gold dryer).

Spray painting the dryer took a little time as we removed the top and carefully taped off anything not to be painted. The shelves were wood stained -the long shelf removed from the back wall was placed just a few inches from the top of the washer and dryer. And the new cabinet was hung at the end of the wall.

The wicker baskets and all of the decorative items in the room were found by rummaging in her closets. It helped de-clutter the closets and the pieces look fantastic in the new laundry room.

It took a bit of work to get the folding table done and patience with the dryer, but the rest of the room was fairly simple.

It is now a beautiful room with a cohesive design; it has a lot of storage space but none of the clutter.

What do you think?