Who says your laundry area doesn’t need to be stylish? Not me!

Renovations are never easy. They seem almost impossible BUT something I’ve learned in the last 12 years of my life: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.

As we prepare to move out of our urban 1800’s home (and into a new home in a new state), I started looking at many of our “before” photos and realized that we did A LOT over the last 12 years. It was simply terrible before. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t loved. It was a sad foreclosure in desperate need of some love. And we gave it just that.

Here are some photos of the full laundry room renovation. It was what appeared to be a kitchen when we bought the home, but it didn’t make sense for us to keep it as a kitchen. It was a smaller room on the second floor of our house. It had a large closet, so we could have turned it into a bedroom, but plumbing for a sink had already been run to it, so I decided it would make a nice laundry room.

Since we renovated this room a while after buying the house, we kept it as a kitchen (plus moved laundry into it) while we renovated the kitchen downstairs. I called myself “The Laundry Room Chef” while having to cook in this room of the house for over a year. We crazily renovated as we lived in the house, so I didn’t have any other option. I made it work though!

There wasn’t a room we didn’t completely rip out and start over on. My husband loves This Old House (the magazine and show), so he studied everything carefully before making decisions on what to rip out and what to keep. Anything that was salvageable was either reused somewhere in the home or donated to local charity organizations. Very little was deemed “junk” as we try to live by the phrase “reduce, reuse and recycle”.

When we finished kitchen renovations (in the area where the kitchen was supposed to be on the first floor), we tackled the laundry room. It was among the last spaces we renovated. We ripped out the cabinets and removed the appliances. With the help of our plumber and electrician, we added plumbing and electrical for the washer and dryer. We also added a new window as the old one was not salvageable. My husband ripped out the drop ceilings and added new ceilings and a new light from IKEA (not pictured).

To make this room modern and organized, I added the following (over time, not all at once due to budgeting):

a new GE White Front Load washer and dryer set with WiFi, OdorBlock & UltraFresh Vent System + Sanitize with Oxi (Kind of funny story…..our old set lasted 11 years and was fixed numerous times by my husband….then one day, the washer just died. It was not repairable. I blamed it on Mercury Retrograde and I think I was mostly right. We had to get a new set a week before putting our house on the market. Oh well….the buyers wanted the new set SO I’m sure it helped move the sale forward. I LOVE this set and can always get it for my new home. I love the fact that it sends me a notification on my phone when it’s time to switch the laundry AND it sends a reminder if I’ve left it in the machine too long).
cedar laundry room hampers, “Laundry Goods” collapsible bin, half circle rugs from Target
clean and crisp white linens from IKEA (and learned to fold them in a cool way thanks to this Pinterest pin)
sink from IKEA (plexiglass backing from Home Depot)
shelves from IKEA
letter board from Amazon
triangle shelf, plant, washer and dryer signs from Hobby Lobby
rug from Ruggable (it’s a washable area rug system that I’m in love with and have in three rooms in our house…when you have pets or kids, it’s the best!)
cart for laundry detergent from IKEA
Cat litter boxes (which are THE BEST LITTER BOXES EVER) are Tidy Cats Breeze Litter Box System in Regular and XL and we got them on Amazon. We fill them with dry pinto beans instead of the pellets it comes with (as my cat wanted to eat the pellets). The whole system (with the beans) keeps their feet clear of litter and all the urine drains to a pad that fits inside of a slide out drawer under the box. The beans last a month and the urine pads last our two BIG Maine Coon cats a few days. We transitioned them to using the beans over time and it worked amazingly well!
lily pad cat food tray and litter mat from Amazon
delicate clothing “octopus” from IKEA
stainless shelf for air drying clothes is “GRUNDTAL” from IKEA
Vinyl “wood” flooring from Menards
Wicker laundry basket, detergent baskets and hangers were things I’ve had for years, but I’m sure similar ones can be found on Amazon or at Target
Not pictured: We keep our dogs out of this room (because they love the cat food and litter boxes) using a “farmhouse” style baby gate I purchased via Amazon. We have small stools in front of and behind the gate for one of our aging cats so she doesn’t have to leap over it. Gates with the separate area for pets to walk through just didn’t work as our cats are bigger than our dogs
I keep extra bed linens, towels and ironing items in the closet in the room