I’ve never lived anywhere with main floor laundry until buying the lakehouse. It feels like winning the lottery. Of course, it would be even lovelier if our main floor laundry room looked like the ones you see in magazines, but I’m already pretty thrilled that the laundry room currently looks like this:
A beautifully blank canvas! This is what the space looked like when we first toured the home:
It didn’t wow us, with its 20 year old appliances, dark yellow walls, oak trim and doors, wood peg rack, dated towel bar, horrible melamine cabinets… And, after working on the house for a few weeks, we only made it worse. It became our dumping ground:
Our sad little laundry room deserved more respect than that, though, because it’s arguably the hardest working room in the house: it not only serves as the laundry room, but it’s also the only access to the powder room and attic. Plus it houses our electrical panel. It’s also our makeshift mudroom: when we enter through the main door, this room is immediately to the right and the kitchen is to the left. To avoid cluttering up the kitchen, I drop my purse and wet mitts in the laundry room. Szuka also calls this home, enjoying her meals and evening snooze here. To further complicate things, I air dry almost all of our laundry inside, on a collapsible, wall-mounted dry rack. Oh, and did I mention two doors open into this room? The only thing it’s missing is a window – but it gets some light from the adjacent powder room.
So far, the laundry room has been cleaned, de-cluttered, and scrubbed thoroughly. My Dad and I worked like mad to quickly paint the walls, trim, ceiling, and doors (including the attic access) a clean white. A new Ikea light was an inexpensive change. I’m trying to corral all of the unsightly things to the side of the room with the washer and dryer because I’m going to pull a townhouse-trick and sew floor to ceiling curtains to hide the whole kit and caboodle. No need to air my dirty (or clean) laundry to any guests needing to use the loo. Eventually we plan to buy new appliances and a new laundry tub, and then build more attractive storage – especially something floor to ceiling to disguise the electrical panel. When we give the kitchen it’s phase two renovation, the kitchen, entry, powder room, and this room will all get new flooring as well (yay!).
For now, washer-hiding curtains, cheery art and useful accessories are high on my to-do list. Mom and I also bought supplies to sew Szuka a colourful bed. And she needs a proper set of bowls.
Also on the list: a pretty, washable rug. Szuka picked this rug after refusing to lie on anything but the smaller version we bought for the front door. I’d prefer something a little more lively.
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| This is her, “uh, no” face. I asked her if we could buy a new rug. |
Hilariously, when we were teaching our pups “go to the mat” at obedience school, a woman with a small little puppy leaned over and quipped, “you must use a floor rug for her mat”. Everyone laughed heartily. Her joke deflated a little when Hubs and I looked at her, totally serious, and asked, “how’d you know?” Szuka broke 80lbs this week (and she’s still growing)! She seems pleased with herself. She should be: she recently learned how to “spin” and “shake a paw” for treats. She’s such a good girl!!
Practical first…pretty later…I like that about you!! Szuka is one smart pup!
It's a process getting the lakehouse how I'd like it to look. It was a major step to get it freshly painted, which helped us stop tossing random stuff in here. I'd so love to rip everything out and buy new appliances, but that isn't in our budget right now. We're hoping this washer and dryer can hang on for a few years. Prettying up this space is next!
Painting everything white improved the room instantly! Im also renovating my laundry but it will be a total gut and renovation so Im looking for all the small space ideas I can find from my fellow bloggers! Great job x
So jealous you're planning a gut job! Definitely not in the budget for us. But you're in luck: most laundry room makeovers include shiny new everything so I'm sure you'll find oodles of inspiration. For my do-over on a dime, a coat of white paint was definitely a strong start. It just seems cleaner and brighter in there now. Next I'll be hiding the washer and dryer, but hopefully one day I can finally own a pair from this century and want to show it off, lol. Good luck with your reno, I'm so excited for you!! A small space is tricky, but starting from scratch means you can maximize every square inch just how you like it.
Room is looking great! For me a laundry room de-clutter alone but be a huge achievement!
Thanks! It probably took longer to clean and tidy than it did to actually paint everything! With everything tidied up, it's so much easier to envision my plans for the space.
I'm the opposite end of the scale from Michelle: trying to figure out what to do with a harvest gold washer/dryer set (still running great) in the end of the kitchen. Yike. I think it's time to embrace them, since I can't fight them right away. I go on musing about your floor-length curtain idea… but, in a kitchen??? Not so sure. Keep going, I always look forward to your before/after photos.Oh, and… Congratulations on your Apartment Therapy appearance for the living room fireplace!!! So well deserved. The room looks wonderful.
A harvest gold washer and dryer? That's tricky! But I totally understand keeping appliances that run perfectly. I've seen neat curtain tracks (I'm considering them) that are ceiling mounted so the curtain feels more like a room divider than window treatment. This might work for you, with a really stiff and neutral fabric. I've also seen some people stencil and paint their appliances (http://howtonestforless.com/2012/09/10/stenciled-washer-and-dryer/). I'm not a wallpaper person, but for some reason wallpapering behind the washer and dryer with a pattern that has some of the gold but also boasts a modern pattern and other colours from your home is an idea that popped into my head. It might blend in more and, I agree, working with them is the best answer. If you want to send me a photo we can brainstorm some ideas 🙂
I spray painted a harvest gold fridge years back and it looked great. You just have to use paint meant for appliances and makes sure you get no drips. I think it was about $6 for a can back then and it took about 3 cans I think.
That's great to hear it turned out well! YHL just did their fridge, but they went from cream to white so I wasn't sure if that helped for a smoother transition. I did some googling and also wasn't sure if a dryer counted as a high heat appliance (some brands won't let you use it on an oven, for example). Thanks for sharing your experience! I wanted to try some funky on our fridge, like painting it bright orange, but I'm so scared it will look horrible and then I'm stuck with it!
Is there something wrong with the email notifications because I haven't gotten one in at least a month…….and no they aren't going to my spam box
I'm so sorry about that! It's a widget I've installed with blogger and not something I devised myself. I will go on the forums and see if someone has an answer. It might work if you unsubscribe and then resubscribe. I have a google search bar on the website from the blogger widgets selection also and sometimes it stops working so I removed it and add it again.
ok, thanks
I think I diagnosed and fixed the problem. Thanks so much for alerting me to that! I really should register myself so I can keep tabs on whether it's working. If you still have trouble let me know and I'll take another stab at it. The problem was definitely on my end of things.
lovely your pups
Awww thanks so much!