Here’s our laundry room when we first purchased our home. Yellowing, peeling linoleum. 1990s light fixture. Significant lack of any storage.
What’s the most used and abused part of your home? I’m willing to bet the laundry area gets quite a bit of use, especially if you have little ones. We often focus on remodeling kitchens and baths, but this highly trafficked area deserves a little TLC. If you’re one of the rare breeds who actually enjoys doing laundry, feel free to skip ahead {and bless your heart.} But for everyone else spending a chunk of your day staring at bleak, uninviting walls while painstakingly sorting mountains of clothes, think how much more {dare I say…} enjoyable this necessary chore could be? If the laundry room makeover wheels aren’t turning just yet, consider these statistics:
72% of house hunters who have owned a home say a laundry room would be an essential feature for their next home compared to just 59% for a living room (according to 2018 survey by the National Association of Home Builders)
86% of millennials stated a laundry room was either desired or essential. The laundry room is the most popular specialty room among all buyers surveyed. And it was the most popular feature out of 175 features listed. (“What Home Buyers Really Want” - 2019 National Association of Home Builders)
Whether you have space in your current home to make a kick-butt laundry room or it’s something you’ll want to keep in mind for your next abode, here’s our recent laundry room makeover for a little inspiration. We are in LOVE with how it turned out!
With some Pinterest inspiration and magical work done by handy Manny, here is our laundry room under construction. We updated floors to a durable ceramic tile (Lowe’s), replaced the utility sink, added white cabinets (Facebook Marketplace), started adding a classic subway tile backsplash (Home Depot), updated light fixture (Amazon and one of the few things yours truly changed out), then we found a holiday deal on a new LG washer/dryer set (Lowe’s).
A few days later...Viola!!! Here’s the finished product. The couple things I would still do (in a perfect world) is paint the walls a different shade and add a beautiful roman shade, but that day will come.
Convenient built-in table for easy folding (but let’s be real...who actually does that?)
Cover for utility sink - hiding lint trash can underneath
Blackboard wall - for grocery list, quotes and husband reminders
Pops of greenery (Ikea must-haves)
Hand towel ladder and laundry signs (splurge at Meijer)
Steaming/hanging clothes rack (built by Manny)
Wall hamper (Marshall find)
Entryway bench (Wayfair)
Hook shelf (At Home)
Full disclaimer: our laundry room isn’t always this neat and tidy, but it sure gets put to good use! For a room that we walk in and out of at a few times every day, it’s something we are thrilled to have done.
Questions/comments? Anything I can help with? Give me a shout!
Yours to count on,
Jessica DeVries
PS. Here’s a bonus project. We keep our kitty litter boxes in our 5 ft tall basement. One of our first DIY projects was adding this multi-purpose cat door/cat brush (Amazon). It gets used at least 50 times a day I’m sure! And you can see Calvin really loves his cat door.