creating a beautiful and functional small laundry room on a budget

When we first moved into our house I was so excited to have a whole room, however small devoted to laundry. I’ve always had the laundry room closet, or laundry room basement or laundromat or my parent’s house miles away. In this little barely 1600 SF cottage we call home, it seemed like a true luxury. However, once we moved in, actually put a washer and dryer in the room which took up like half of the usable space (the nerve!) it became clear that this pass-through laundry, utility, coatroom, shoe room entry and exit with doors on 2 walls + one electrical panel was not much of a room after all.

We stuck an awkward and wobbly pine shelf (our fault, not IKEA’s) along the only open wall and it soon became home to every stray thing that couldn’t be shoved into a closet or drawer someplace else. Shoes piled up by the door but didn’t really have a place to go and our coats could not be contained on the cute but impractically flimsy dog butt hooks (totally IKEA’s fault, not ours) we put on the tiny wall space by the electrical panel.

All in all – this room that served as our home’s hello was more of a “what are you doing here?” than a “welcome back to the place where you belong!”

We work hard to fill the rest of the house with love, but this little spot we use a good 10 times a day was neglected to say the least.

I wanted it to be cute and feel good and be more functional – but this room is not where I want to invest much money, so I needed to come up with something that would make a big impact for a tiny budget.

Some mandatories:

• Bright and welcoming. It’s a tiny space with a very low ceiling. I did not want a laundry cave – rather a sunny glow.
• Functional storage with as much random stuff hidden away as possible without it being fussy or impractical to use it when we need it.
• I wanted to be able to repurpose stuff that I’m not using in other rooms if I could while still investing in the right things to create a cohesive and pulled together space.
• Plenty of shoe storage
• I wanted to keep as much natural light coming in the windows AND more privacy since this room is just a few feet away from our neighbor’s front porch.
• I wanted to do something bold that we wouldn’t necessarily do in other parts of the house, but still fits with our home’s general vibe.

The result is a tiny room I am over the moon about. I actually like doing laundry now. And coming home? It’s like walking through a big dimpled smile. The room feels bigger and more functional – and it’s a heck of a lot cuter.

Top 5 tips for creating a beautiful and functional small laundry room on a budget:

1. Invest in clean and uniform storage to reduce the look of clutter and actual clutter by providing a place for all the random stuff you have to have.
2. Use space behind doors for keeping the less pretty stuff like ironing board, brooms and dusters
3. Go bold with color and paint.  Stripes or other bold patterns on the walls create a big statement for a small chunk of the budget.
4. Bring in some of your style through like artwork, fun lighting, window treatments to make it feel like part of house – not a depressing work area where you really don’t want to be.  (Repurpose this from other areas of your house when you can).
5. If it is part of the entry – create designated space for shoes and coats that are sturdy, functional and if possible even multi-purpose (like our shoe box on wheels that doubles as a laundry folding spot).