Remodeling is not just for the kitchen and bathroom—designing your laundry room to be more efficient and inviting can be rewarding; and improvements can be very inexpensive.
Choose Practical Flooring
One of the first things you should to do to make your laundry room more efficient is lay practical flooring. Choose a floor option that is heavy-duty and easy to clean because it’s prone to dirt and water. Consider linoleum or vinyl. Practical flooring does not mean boring. Look for different color and pattern options to liven up the room and give it a fresh feeling.
Improve Your Lighting
Most generic laundry rooms have very poor lighting, which makes no sense. Either the lighting is a small dim mushroom fixture or it is a large bright fluorescent piece that makes you squint. If any room needs good lighting, it is your laundry room. Seeing well is important to properly removing stains off your clothes, folding and correctly matching odd socks. Bright and comfortable overhead lighting, with some additional spotlights possibly, is a great way to ensure a clean family.
Decorate
Just because it’s your laundry room doesn’t mean it has to look boring. Take the time to add some design elements to make it more enjoyable to be in. For example, choose a cheery color, such as yellow, to paint the walls. Hang pictures that make you happy. Let the natural light shine in when it’s cool outside and lower the shades to beat the heat in the summer. Take a load off when folding your laundry and add some modern counter height chairs to the room. This feature will welcome company into the room as you match and sort socks.
Build a Laundry Chute
If your laundry room is on the bottom floor and your bedrooms are on the top floor, you may want to look into putting in a laundry chute. You’ll have to find a path between floors that is not blocked by any drains or ventilation.
Buy a Front-Load Washer
Front-load washers are more energy efficient because they have the capability to spin faster. Houzz.com also suggests using a front-load washer so that you can build a counter above it. This counter can be used for extra storage space or as a place to fold the clothes.
Fill Every Space
Most laundry rooms are very limited on space. You could build cabinets on the wall to store your laundry supplies or find a slim organizer to attach to the side of the washer and dryer to fit those small laundry items and a trash can.
Get Creative With Storage
When building extra storage, get creative. For example, you can use one of the cabinets to install a fold-out ironing board. That way, it is there when you need it, but you don’t have to take up valuable space when it is not in use.
Now that you know seven great ways to spruce up your laundry room, you have no more excuses for postponing the laundry. What have you done to make your laundry room more functional and inviting?
This is a guest post by Lindsay Coleman
Lindsay, a freelance blogger/editor in the food and entertainment industry, hates downtime. She goes out of her way to discover and enjoy new things.
A laundry chute! We have just moved to a new (older) home and will be doing some remodeling–actually,the laundry room will be from scratch in the basement. As a matter of sheer luck, the linen closet right next to our bathroom is almost directly above where the laundry room will be in the basement. We are thinking of building in a chute. Cool!
As for vinyl flooring–it’s *not* your grandma’s kitchen floor! We are going for vinyl tiles that look like stone–you even grout it. It gives the look but is warmer, less expensive,and easier to care for than stone.
That’s awesome, Mary! I’ve always wanted a laundry chute. They just seem so cool! It’s fun to do something things from scratch so you can pick out exactly what you want! Congrats on the new place!