Thank you Wanderluster from Rambling Renovators for your comment! Did ya'll read it? Love her ideas and that gives me so much to think about. I imagine I'll be spending many a night falling asleep to my thoughts on how to make this room rock!
Btw, I first found Rambling Renovators when researching nursery decor ideas. Check out her baby's nursery. Super cute!
*update*
Wow! I should have posted about this problem a long time ago! Thanks to everyone for your input! Keep it comin'! I even got Sherry at Young House Love to weigh in. Check out her blog. Ideas galore!
So, I'm thinking we're shooting for something along the lines of this:
photo from Apartment Therapy
We wouldn't have enough room for the storage under the table, but we could just leave that open. I love the little cabinet above the machines. I'm sure Jeff could come up with something! Stay tuned for our progress and for our next design dilemma-the living room!
Here we have it, folks. Our laundry room. I loathe it. Not because of the endless (literally) amounts of laundry that gets done there, but because the room is just not functional.
It has these little half doors. They work fine, but be careful! If you get in there and the doors close, you can't get back out!
The dryer is on the left. Washer on the right. The dryer door opens to the left. So does the washer door and it cannot be changed. Believe me, I've already asked. So, in an already cramped room, you have to maneuver the washer door, the laundry room door, and your baskets of laundry in order to actually load the wash. This is the part I hate the most.
Additionally, we have these tired cabinets which are hard to access, yucky linoleum, and a color on the walls that would not be my first choice. Or second.
So, what do we do? Loyal readers and savvy decorators, I need your thoughts!
We can for sure tile and paint and remove the cabinets. But what do we do about the washer and dryer? Do we stack them on the right side of the room? Then what do we do with the left side? Do we take them both off their risers and build a table above them? Do we add open shelves or replace the cabinets? We store our cleaning supplies in this room as well as our canister vac, brooms, mops, etc.
Send me your ideas! Please! I cannot stand to do another load of laundry in this awful room!
3 comments :
i'll have to think about this some more, but i say stack them on the right side of the room, but facing the living room. then, the doors would both open toward the back wall, and you could put shelves along the back wall on the left side.
ideally, your handy husband could install pocket doors, but i'm not sure how feasible this is ... http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/4212294.html
if anyone could do it, it would be jeff.
get a wall-mount doodad that holds your mops/swiffer:
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/garage/toolRacks?productId=10000525i
I'd stack the machines. Remove all but 1 cabinet, and install a hanging bar or a ironing station where the other cabinets are. Paint the walls your favorite color so it doesn't feel like total punishment to be doing laundry.
Good luck!
That is a bit of a tricky room! Here's a few things I'd do:
- change the swinging doors to bifold doors. You could use the existing swinging doors and connect them with a hinge in the middle, and just remove and fill in the hinge on the right side door. You'd want them to open towards the left, to give you the most entry room into the laundry.
- remove the risers below the washer and dryer and put a countertop on top. I'd prefer a side by side layout as opposed to stacked so you don't lose the folding space on the counter. If you don't actually fold in this room, then the stacked layout is a nice option too.
- move the existing cabinets up to the ceiling and put an open shelf below. On the shelf you can put pretty baskets to hold mismatched socks, pocket change or what not - and the baskets can add a bit of pattern.
- add some patterned wallpaper to the left and right walls
Hope that helps! I like the option you have in the inspiration pic too.
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