Laundry Room Refresh

“The laundry room, sorting life out one load at a time.” -Unknown

When we moved into the farmhouse, I was so excited to have a designated laundry room. It was something I had on my wishlist since owning our first home in California. Even growing up, my family never had a laundry room, unless you consider the garage a laundry room.

It always seemed odd to me that architects thought the same space where cars, bikes, and gardening tools were stored should also be the space where appliances that clean clothing should be housed… but I digress.

When we found our farmhouse, I was over the moon that it had a designated laundry room. Prior to moving, we did a lot of work to the house. One of the rooms we updated was the laundry room. Now, we didn’t have it in the budget to make it the laundry room of my dreams, but we did make some simple updates. We replaced the linoleum floors with inexpensive tile and we repurposed some of the old cabinets from the kitchen remodel to add storage.

For over a year, I have been thinking about changes I wanted to make to our laundry room. Now that we have been in the farmhouse for five years, the cabinets (that weren’t in the best shape to begin with) were really falling apart. I also realized that I didn’t need as much storage as they offered. Many of the cabinets were empty and the space felt a bit cramped.The plan was, this summer I was going to tackle my laundry room project and bring my updating ideas to life. However, with the emergence of the Coronavirus and staying home to help prevent the spread, I was pining to keep busy and distracted…Let the demo begin!

We took out the upper cabinets and installed faux shiplap behind the washer and dryer. (See Plank Wall DIY (Faux Shiplap) post for installation details.) After the shiplap had been installed, I sanded and stained two five-foot boards for the shelves. We hung the shelves 17 inches apart and used black iron brackets to secure them.I’ve always loved open shelving, but I have a hard time committing to putting them in main living spaces because I don’t like the feeling of things being cluttered. When it comes to open shelving (in my opinion), to look good, they need to always be organized. In some spaces, that can be very difficult. Open shelves in the laundry room though… now that’s a different story! I felt confident I could keep open shelves in the laundry room organized.Once the shelves were up, it was time to focus on the lower cabinet. I started with a fresh coat of paint and inexpensive hardware to give it an updated look. We removed the laminate countertop and thanks to Home Depot, I was able to have a butcher block top delivered to the house. This was a surprisingly affordable countertop solution. I stained the butcher block top the same color as the shelves. Not only was the piece big enough for the countertop, once we cut it to fit the cabinet, I was able to get a remnant piece to use in the kitchen. Win-win!

All that was left was the finishing touches. I decided to lighten the color in the laundry room and used one of my favorite colors in the farmhouse, Sherwin Williams, Natural Choice (also in the bedrooms). A new ceiling light, a mirror above the cabinet and a new rug and my dream laundry room was complete.

For $450, I was able to transform and refresh our laundry into a more open and functional space in the farmhouse. I could not be more pleased with how it turned out. Although I love this space deeply, my love for laundry has not grown, which is unfortunate. At least I have a beautiful space to pretend I love it though!