By Caron Golden
For The Union-Tribune
It may be the most indispensable room in your home, but a laundry room can also be the most overlooked. We tend to focus on great design for kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, but what keeps these spaces looking so good? What’s stored in the laundry room. And what can incentivize us to do the upkeep in our home? A well-organized, well-stocked laundry room that’s easy to use and easy on the eyes.
I spoke with local interior designers and saw some of their projects’ before pictures. Let’s just say that people did their best with what they had at the time — but it couldn’t have been easy with low lighting, products overflowing in cramped spaces or nowhere practical to fold or hang clothes.
Creating thoughtful storage, lighting and task areas can make a huge difference in adding efficiency to a chore. And some of the add-ons in laundry rooms can be huge lifestyle boons, like a dog bath station, a mudroom for kids’ shoes and sports gear, or a gift-wrapping station.
A laundry room by South Harlow Interiors includes a pot filler in the cupboards below for the dog bowl beneath it. (Nader Essa)
“I think we’re always taking the client’s lifestyle into account,” said Katie Porter, senior designer at South Harlow Interiors. “So we kind of figure out, what are their priorities, how they’re going to use the space. Is this a space that they’ll be spending a lot of time in? Or is this like simply utilitarian, where function kind of trumps aesthetics? We always ask, do they have kids? Do they have dogs?”
If the answers are yes, then Porter can identify if the team needs to integrate locker storage or a dog wash station. Do they need a place to store shoes or other drop-zone areas?
The design team might need to accommodate other needs, too, like designing cabinetry to accommodate older clients, raising washing machines and dryers to keep them from straining to remove clothes and moving them. Making sure storage isn’t too high so they don’t have to get on stools to retrieve items or put them away.
“It’s very client-driven because it’s so specific and it has to function with their lifestyle,” Porter emphasized.
A laundry room by South Harlow Interiors incorporates a hanging rod above the sink for air drying clothes. (Nader Essa)
So, for instance, a few years ago, a client of Porter’s wanted to incorporate a pot-filler for their dog’s water refill station. Another got pull-out drying racks.
So much of the design clearly depends on the space available, also. Some laundry rooms become more like utility rooms with plenty of space to design for a wide array of functions. Others are cozier — a small room off a back entrance, a laundry closet in a condo or a second laundry space in a walk-in closet.
Instead of treating your laundry room as an afterthought, you need to ask yourself questions to prioritize what truly needs to be in there in the context of what will fit and how you live.
If you’re considering a remodel, here are some basic components to consider:
• A sink for pre-soaking dirty clothes or hand-washing delicates.
• A hanging rod for air drying.
• A flat surface for folding laundry.
• A fold-down ironing board or closet for a steamer.
• A space for laundry bins.
• Storage for detergent and other laundry cleaners, as well as storage for household cleaning items.
Not every laundry space can incorporate all of these, of course. Or maybe they aren’t important to you. So maybe you fold clothes in your bedroom, soak delicates in a bathroom sink and hang air-drying clothes in a bathroom, for instance. Other, larger laundry rooms can be designed to fit much more to corral functionality to a single space in the house.
Beyond the wish list are more practical elements:
• What kind of appliances do you want?
• Side by side or stackable? A separate stackable washer and dryer or a single unit?
• What features do you want? Steam/air fluff? Dry clean?
• Beyond that, do you need a floor drain? Do you have or need to move water lines, gas lines and electrical outlets? Will they interfere with cabinet placement? Do you have a high-capacity drain pipe?
• What kind of lighting do you need?
• Do you have ventilation to prevent mold and mildew?
• Do you need to remove standard swinging doors to accommodate a new layout? Is your water heater in your current laundry room and will that need to move?
Before, an Ntrada client’s multipurpose laundry area is lacking storage. (Ntrada Design)
An interior designer can address these issues as can a contractor.
Little things to help with organization can also make a big difference in functionality. Placing cleaning products, cloths and tools for different uses in labeled baskets make them easier to find quickly. If you have unused vertical space, hang a pegboard for brushes, dust pans and spray bottles — or hang leashes, keys, jackets and towels.
Use a slim roll cart between your washer and dryer for your cleaning supplies. Save space with pull-out ironing boards or a wall-mount drying rack. Use the same types of lazy Susan-style storage units in your kitchen cabinets to gain storage space in cabinet corners.
After, Sheryl Chaffee of Ntrada Design used a stackable washer and dryer to open up room for floor-to-ceiling storage space. (Ntrada Design)
After, the laundry area is as light and bright as the adjacent kitchen. (Ntrada Design)
Interior designer Sheryl Chaffee of Ntrada Design recalled a project she worked on in which, late in the project, the client asked for a pantry just outside of the “very tiny laundry room” off the kitchen. To provide more storage space than the previous laundry room had, Chaffee replaced a side-by-side washer/dryer pair with cabinets and a small soaking sink in the countertop and put stackable appliances against the short wall leading to the kitchen. On the other side of the doorway she was able to insert a tiny pantry. Instead of the former swinging door separating the rooms, she inserted a pocket door into the doorway to close off the laundry room and used a barn door for the pantry.
For another laundry room project, Chaffee’s clients also wanted a pullout double pantry and a closet for her vacuum cleaner and mops as well as small appliances.
“There’s outlets in there so the Dust Buster and things are plugged in inside,” she said. “It also has a kind of lazy Susan, but it’s more of one of those blind corner units that pulls out. And we had a hanging shelf and rod in there because she needed hanging space.”
Before, an Ntrada client’s laundry lacks functional areas for different tasks. (Ntrada Design)
Because the laundry room was adjacent to the kitchen, the client opted against a sink, saying she could use the kitchen sink.
“So, it always kind of depends on what their priorities are,” said Chaffee.
Chaffee also emphasized the importance of lighting.
“I typically will put canned recessed LEDs up in the ceiling, and then also under-cabinet lighting, just so they can see underneath to read a label on a piece of clothing to make sure they’re washing it correctly, or whatever. It’s kind of the same concepts of lighting like in a kitchen, but maybe not quite as intense, because it’s not like you’re cooking or anything in there, but it’s a place where you’re doing tasks.”
Once all the practicalities and functionality of a laundry room are addressed, how about dressing it up a bit? Add art. Add family pictures. Wallpaper.
After, Sheryl Chaffee of Ntrada Design stacked the appliances and created multiple zones for tasks. (Ntrada Design)
When I was a child, my uncle, a photographer, for some reason took studio-style photos of my mom, little sister and me in laundry scenarios — one was of my sister and me sitting in a laundry basket, with my mom kneeling and laundry products and clothespins scattered in front of us. Another had us all nicely dressed, with my young mom holding my sister in one arm and folded towels in the other, while I was on the floor between her legs. She and my dad had those photos in every one of their laundry rooms over the years.
Now I now have them. Does it make doing laundry fun? Of course not, but seeing them when I do my laundry makes me smile.
Carmen Coutts, an interior designer with Tracy Lynn Studio who is now launching her own firm, Daughters of Design, recently completed a laundry room project designed around wallpaper that her client had found.
The whimsical design features black horses with manes and tails that are alternately red and pink. The rest of the objects are abstract in blues and other colors, all against a cream background.
“We were obsessed with the wallpaper and then we just kind of designed from there,” Coutts recounted.
Wall design can also be peel-and-stick wall tiles, paint or a gallery for kids art — whatever brings joy.
“I think I always push for fun,” added Coutts. “I kind of always start out with, you could treat the walls or you can treat the floors, or you can treat both, obviously, but figure out what your fun should be or what you want it to be.
“Once we establish what’s going to be the fun — it’s typically walls — then do you want to play off the walls? Usually I feel like it’s always something graphic and really entertaining. It’s just happy. I think the happiness of it is because you’re not doing something that’s technically thrilling in this space, but it makes it so you enjoy being in the space.”
A breezy, playful wallpaper set the vibe for this laundry room transformation by Carmen Coutts. A deep sink with cupboards was installed next to niche cutouts for decorative items. (Daughters of Design)
Coutts pulled the blue from the wallpaper for the cabinet color and added a neutral tile in a herringbone pattern for the floor since it’s a pathway from the backdoor into the house. The space is small, but Coutts was able to add a deep sink and storage area.
The new laundry area makes smart use of a small space near a backdoor entrance, with full-size cupboards to store supplies. Carmen Coutts had a tile floor laid in a herringbone pattern. (Daughters of Design)
“I feel like people need to have a deep sink because people soak things because of sports and kids and animals,” she said. “One thing that’s not in this laundry room that I wish I would have done, and actually have in my personal laundry room, is a butcher block cutout that covers my sink and becomes my folding area.”
The narrow wall between the sink and a very pink guest bathroom has three shallow built-in niches for decorative items. A stackable washer and dryer is on the other side of the sink. Across from them are blue floor-to-ceiling cabinets with outlets for the family’s Dyson vacuum and a charging station for other appliances.
“I get a lot of joy of designing kitchens and bathrooms, but there’s so much you can do with a laundry room,” Coutts said. “I mean, it could be a craft space. It could be your mudroom. It could be your wrapping paper area. A dog wash.
“Laundry rooms are a place that you do so many tasks that are not necessarily enjoyable. But why not make it so you’re in a space that makes you happy?”