The laundry room basically consists of a 5′ x 5’7″ hallway that leads to the small bathroom and the backyard. The old stacked washer/dryer combo fit in the space — sort-of. It sticks out beyond the doorway; whaddya gonna do? The wall leading to the small bathroom was paneled with 1/8″ masonite paneling (very ugly!), the bathroom pocket door was a plain flat panel ugly thing, too, and there were just scraps of 1″ x 1/4″ wood “adorning” the door as door casing. The back door was a windowless metal door and it opened in the wrong direction.
The homeowners used the space next to the washer/dryer as a sort of catch-all for recycling, garbage, and other junk, so it looked pretty awful.
We eventually had the small bathroom wall properly built, replace the pocket door with a door to match the other doors in the house, and had some door casing milled to match the original style of door casing. After all of that, the homeowner painted the walls, installed crown molding, replaced the overhead light fixture, and put up baseboard, beadboard, and beadboard cap trim. An old two-door cabinet was rejuvenated with shaker doors and installed, a hat rack was put up, and a new rug was purchased. The recycling eventually made its way to a new dual garbage/recycling can that found a perfect in the kitchen, and most of the rest of the junk also no longer lives in the laundry room.
There is still some work to be done — the homeowners are hoping to buy smaller individual washer and dryer to be placed side-by-side, and hopefully NOT stick out past the door opening, and then have a full-width shelf placed above them, plus a small set of cabinets with a connecting shelf that holds a hanging and/or pull-out drying rack. Additional strong lighting is also desired.
Project Photos:
The little hallway between the kitchen and the back door also serves as the laundry "room" -- before: white, ugly, and kind of junky
Design Inspirations
