Getting My Brain Straight: What I Want Out of the Laundry Room

The laundry room project is on like donkey kong; I am conquering my fear and tackling it! As I was determining the levelness of the walls and marking out lines in 4-inch increments, I realized I needed one last soul-searching, inspiration list for exactly what I want out of this laundry room. Once the paneling and painting are done, I need to get going on the details that will make this room worth all the work that is going into it!

What do we use it for?

• Laundry (duh)
• Our washer and dryer
• Ironing board
• Laundry baskets
• Laundry soaps, etc.
• Clothes that need to hang dry
• Cleaning products
• Household product storage
• Light bulbs
• Paper towels
• Batteries
• Extra Soap
• Recycling
• Plastic
• Paper
• Aluminum
• Plastic bags
• Dog stuff
• Dog food container
• Dog bowls
• Miscellaneous dog accouterments
• Informal entryway (it opens to the garage, which is where we always come into and leave the house)
• Keys
• Sunglasses
• Spare change
• Purse/Bags
• Coats (in the winter)
• Shoes (I shouldn't keep my shoes here, but sometimes I just can't help kicking them off as soon as I walk in...)

This is not a large room we're talking about. We're lucky in that it's not a tiny closet, but it's pretty small and it wears a lot of hats. So I really want to maximize space and  squeeze every last inch out of the room. Oh, and I want it to be pretty. :-)

Here are some inspirational ways to deal with the above requirements: 

Ana White Homemaker

This takes care of both the washer/dryer issue and the laundry baskets. Bam!

Trends and Traditions

I love the idea of using an old dresser and turning the top into an ironing board. I'd have to find one that fit in the space next to our dryer pretty snugly, or think of a really good way to use the gap space. 

Piccsy

If we go with the ironing dresser route, I'd like to do something like this with the bottom drawer (but with three food bowls, instead of one food and one water bowl). 

Martha Stewart

Super easy solution for clothes that can't go in the dryer. I'll hang this below the small, high cabinets above the ironing board space (see current pics here). 

Martha Stewart

I don't really want to make this recycling center in the laundry room, but I think it would be perfect right outside the door on the garage wall. 

Martha Stewart

Love this simple idea for organizing coats and accessories. Smaller baskets would be great for sunglasses and other smallish things like hats, mittens, and purses. 

Martha Stewart

What about an ironing table instead of an ironing dresser? I'd be giving up storage space in the drawers, but I love the shoe tray underneath the table. Hmmm...


Gotta get the paneling and painting done, then I can get to this fun stuff! Ok, I'm going, I'm going...