creating home – laundry/mudroom

This room is exciting for a lot of reasons, the first being that it is a room that I never thought that I would have. Knowing that I would be one day purchasing a townhouse or condo and not a detached house I figured that my washer and dryer would just be in a closet somewhere and that I wouldn’t have a laundry room like I had grown up with. And for all but one of the homes we toured that was the case.

Then we toured the place that would eventually become our home and saw this room. It wasn’t featured or pictured in the giant brochure we were given and it wasn’t mentioned in the listing, but I was instantly so excited. The woman before us had it stuffed with the washer and dryer on top of each other and a giant heavy wardrobe which made the space seem so cramped and not useful at all, but my mind was already spinning with ideas.

Before I get to the room however I will quickly show my linen/house closet which is located right outside of the laundry room. Since the completion of the laundry room I have been able to tidy this closet so that holds home supplies such as toilet paper, cleaning supplies, extra lightbulbs, small tools for projects like hanging pictures, extra supplies for DIY projects, as well as the sewing machine and craft supplies.

Then when you turn around you see the hallway into the laundry room. The door at the end of the hallway leads into the garage (which still needs a lot of organization work) and one day I would like to have some sort of calendar/hooks for backpacks/place to put incoming/outgoing papers and mail along this wall but that isn’t needed just yet. There are some hooks that were left on the back of the door which we keep some jackets, my purse, and a spare garage door opener on and on the ground you can usually find a crate from our last grocery shop ready to go for the next time that we leave.

We have painted this whole area with the same neutral paint as the rest of the house and the floor is the same as the other bathrooms and kitchen which I really like.

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When you turn the corner into the laundry room you can first see our laundry sink. I have really enjoyed having a sink that I don’t care about keeping clean for messy jobs such as cleaning paintbrushes, washing our hands after being out in the garden, and rinsing my hair out after dying it. One day I would love to replace this sink with a stainless steel one as this sink isn’t level at all and it isn’t the prettiest, but it does its job perfectly so that doesn’t have to happen any time soon.

Under the sink I keep things such as the first aid kit, our rags and towels for the really messy cleanups, and some deep cleaning supplies that we don’t use often. Then between the sink and the laundry machine is the perfect place to keep the vacuum and the broom so that they are out of the way, but accessible.

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Now we get to my favourite part of the room. I have always dreamed of having a washer and dryer that I can have a bench on top of for folding clothes or ironing (not that I ever do that) and thanks to my very handy dad he was able to build us one to fit perfectly as well as hide some of the very ugly connections to the wall. Originally I really wanted this to be on the back wall, but due to where the water and vent connections were that wasn’t able to happen.

The bench is built so that it is attached to the back wall, but it doesn’t rest on the washer and dryer so they can still be moved out and back in if needed.

I try to keep the bench mostly clean when it isn’t being used, but I do keep the silver pail in the corner to put any garbage in as well as collect the dryer lint. You can’t see it in the picture but there is a tiny space between the dryer and the wall that fits my drying rack perfectly when it is not in use saving a lot of space.

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The shelf is built with the same wood as the bench top (and many other things in our home) and it holds all of the supplies that I may need for doing the laundry as well as a few decorations. This includes my iron, stain remover bar, laundry detergent, essential oils to scent my dryer balls, a bin for dirty clothes that need to get cleaned on a sanitize cycle once a month, and a few fake plants for decor.

On the opposite wall I just have a piece of art I found with the descriptions of all of the laundry symbols so it is both art as well as a helpful guide when I don’t know how to wash something.

The back wall is our feature in the room which we wallpapered ourselves with peel and stick wallpaper. Now this wasn’t the most difficult thing to do, but there were definitely some tears involved and some moments to regroup were needed before we could finish it all. I absolutely love how it turned out however and it is such a fun pop of colour in the room. We attached a black bar across the top to hang clothes to dry with our extra hangers ready to go.

Here is a picture of the laundry room in action. While it isn’t a very big space I think we have figured out a way to make the most of it and make it functional and it is a room that I really enjoy being in, even if that does mean that I am doing laundry.

While this room may have to change a bit in the future when it become more of a travel space/mudroom (such as having some sort of skinny shoe storage as well as more hooks) I am so happy with where we have taken this room already.

What is an unexpected room in your home that you have fallen in love with?