largefamilyarrows

8 min read

HOW I RENOVATED MY LAUNDRY ROOM FOR A LARGE FAMILY

Updated: Oct 1

If you’re anything like me, your laundry room is probably one of the most neglected rooms in your house. It can be a place to drop off all those things that don’t yet have a home.

For our family, it’s also used for run-over pantry items. Also, my collection of house paint for projects I started earlier was housed there.

So you can see in our house the laundry room can get out of disarray really quickly.

In this blog post, I am going to talk about some of our renovations and how I organized my laundry room to meet our large families’ needs.

One of the first things we did was renovate the space.

Removing counters and shelves

We took out the previous shelves, counter, and laundry sink that were in there.

The sink was small and stained, so while functional it wasn’t pretty and for the size of the laundry room, it was just too tight and cluttered.

I wanted to be able to organize the space better to meet our large families’ needs. For me, that meant being able to place cubes or baskets on the shelves for various things.

For us, our laundry room is used for laundry of course, but also my sewing machine and supplies, all cleaning supplies, cleaning rags, and spillover for our pantry. I don’t want to forget my gallons of paint cans as we don’t really have a garage, just a carport. Also, we are using it for extra blankets.

We needed to organize it in the most efficient way to meet all those needs.

Getting rid of the green

The house that we bought is an older home, and it has had about 3 or 4 renovations to the home before we got here.

There were parts added to the home and a second story put on in the 70’s. The first part was built in the 30’s to my understanding.

So before we could paint the laundry room the plumbing had to be added in the wall. That’s right, the water pipes weren’t in the wall and just went up the back of the wall on the outside. So that meant there weren’t any wall coverings behind the washing machine.

The dryer just vented in the floor without any vent cover. We have great neighbors, so one of them came over and helped (or more like did it for us) and helped us fix that mess.

After, all that was fixed, we were able to put drywall over it. We then added drywall to the walls which had paneling, and then we began painting.

Actually, I have painted twice.

When we bought the house it was a pale green, it was kind of flat and uninviting in my opinion. Then I decided to go with a cheery teal. I really enjoyed the teal but after a while, I decided to go with a lite gray to match the bathrooms.

I guess you can tell by now that I like to paint. Putting some paint on the wall is an inexpensive way to transform and update your space on a budget.

I am happy with the color I have now. My laundry room is kind of small and the lite color helps the room to have a larger feel to it.

New flooring was needed

The next thing we had to do before putting in tiles was to replace the flooring over the subfloor. The floor was old and had water damage because of the way the plumbing was put in.

The upstairs bathroom drained into the same pipe that the washing machine drained out of. Sometimes the water would move down to fast and spill over into our laundry room.

I am so grateful that is no longer an issue. I am thankful for the talents God has given my son for helping with the flooring project.

So after the flooring repairs we could get started with laying our new tile.

That is always the exciting part for me is getting to see something new. It’s like paint, it always updates your room and makes it look better.

Plus I say it always brings me instant gratification to see the improvements taking place.

We replaced the laminate with a lite gray ceramic tile. I am very happy with it and it is so easy to keep clean.

Time to install new shelves

When searching for new shelves to put back in my laundry room, I wanted to find what would work best for our family.

I needed shelves that would be 12 inches deep and 12 inches in between in order to put cubes or baskets.

Since we just have a carport and not a garage. I keep my cans of paint from house projects I have done in there. Also, besides having large amounts of paper products for a large family. I also keep extra pantry foods in the laundry room.

I wanted to have shelves that would meet my needs while keeping things clear off the floor.

When your space is limited, having clear floors is a must for moving around freely.

My farm-style theme

Since the farm style or rustic theme is what I like for the decor of my home, the industrial pipe shelves are what I went with.

These shelves are durable, look nice and they are the perfect size for storing baskets or cubes.

Organizing the laundry room

After the shelves were put up it’s now time to organize. Now while I would love to tell you that was what happened. I am a busy homeschooling mom and pastor’s wife.

Besides being a pastor, my husband is also a tax accountant and he stays pretty busy.

So you get the laundry room mostly completed except for some odds and ends but then you get busy and it gets to be a collect-all.

That’s what happens to us if we don’t stay on top of it.

My last blog post was 14 tips to organizing your laundry room and so I decided to put some of those tips into action in this blog post.

14 TIPS FOR ORGANIZING YOUR LAUNDRY ROOM AND HOW TO GET STARTED

HOW TO USE CLOTHES STORAGE BAGS FOR TRAVELING

A. Emptying the laundry room

I took everything out of the laundry room so I could work.

B. Purging

After sorting through the contents of the laundry room, I started separating the things that don’t belong there. You know like caulking and tile floor supplies.

I then threw away things that we didn’t need in there.

C. Purchasing storage baskets

I went to Dollar Tree and purchased 10 large clear storage baskets. 1 small basket and a clear 3-compartment basket for things such as buttons and needles. I picked up 2 packages of hooks for the wall and a little shelf to finish my look to the laundry room. I also picked up a little tray and a bottle for vinegar.

I then went to Walmart and I purchased a metal planter and some greenery. I bought a glass pitcher for laundry detergent and a chalk pen for the labels I already had from Amazon.

D. Let the Painting begin

I took the little tray and the planter home and sprayed it a bronze color. I just love that color. I also had some other hooks at home and I sprayed them as well.

Those clear plastic baskets, well they just weren’t working with what I needed. Since I would have preferred white and Dollar Tree didn’t have it, you guessed it. I took those baskets and sprayed them white.

Like I said earlier, I really like painting.

Painting them white gave me the universal color I was looking for in my laundry room.

E. Let the organizing begin

After my baskets had dried it was time to start bringing things back into the laundry room. I carefully went through each thing and found a home for it. I really could add other things to the baskets, but it’s ok not to have tons of things in them.

F. Labeling

Now while I had chalk labels for a long time, I had never used them. I didn’t even know what a chalk pen looked like. I had to look it up online.

I know that sounds crazy but seriously, I hadn’t used one but I finally bought myself a chalk pen.

I am like a kid with a new toy. While I already like to use my label machine, the pen was a lot of fun. I wanted to label all kinds of things.

However, besides me playing with my pen, labels are key to finding the things that you have already given a home to.

Industrial pipe towel rack

Keeping with my industrial pipe shelf. I picked up an industrial-style pipe swing-out towel rack. I always had wet towels, rags, etc on the floor. If the wet rags weren’t on the floor they were hanging on the edge of the dirty towel basket to dry.

Now while this worked, it was also a collect-all for rags. When the wet ones got dry they didn’t get moved to the basket. So we always had several wet towels or rags hanging on the basket.

With a large family, you can go through several rags sometimes in a day.

So I bought this industrial pipe towel rack to solve my wet clothes dilemma.

Now they get dried and moved to the basket because they can be seen. The basket on the bottom of my cabinet was out of sight out of mind.

Bookshelf for a counter

Speaking of cabinets. Well after removing the old shelves, we also removed the old counter and shelves that were in there.

I did enjoy having a counter in there. I like to fold laundry in my laundry room when it is organized and we can get in there.

So the recycled cabinet that I currently have in there makes a nice folding table.

I like to have shelves to put laundry baskets on plus it has a spot for dirty towels and rags on the bottom.

I have not completed the painting of it yet.

So it’s not to pretty yet but it’s functional.

Now I have what I call these little cubby shelves and they hold my sewing machine and supplies, middle shelf is for paper products and the bottom is for our blankets, however, I don’t have blankets in it yet.

Think vertically and use the walls

When you start running out of floor space or you want to have something within reach quickly, look up.

Well, that is, to start looking at your walls. I put some hooks on both sides of my counter shelf or cabinet. It now holds my step ladder without it being on the floor.

The other end holds my Aldi grocery bag and heated and cold bag. I am so happy to have a place for these guys without them sitting on the floor or being in the kitchen.

I picked up broom holders (not sure of their real names) and put 2 of them on the wall for extra mops, dusters, etc.

While I don’t do a lot of ironing. I still use it on occasion for church clothes. However, my large one was just taking up space on the floor. I opted for a table ironing board and it fits nicely on the wall and looks like decor.

Lint catcher

That little planter that I picked up from Walmart and spray painted is now my new lint catcher bucket. I wanted something to keep the lint from the floor or dryer. As that is where the kids put it, however, I wanted something that would look nice and go with the room.

I think this works great for the job.

Don’t forget the decor

Now while having decorations in your laundry room isn’t a must, you do spend a lot of time in there. Why not have some nice things to look at while you are in there?

After all, you have decor for the rest of your house, add something that you enjoy to your laundry room. You might find that you enjoy doing the laundry just a bit more or at least your ok with it.

Oh and that cute little tray I bought at Walmart now sits on the washer with my laundry supplies. I think it looks so nice.

There are some ideas on how to renovate and organize your laundry room. I hope this gives you some ideas on what to do in your space.

Remember when you are renovating, organizing, or just adding things to a room; think about what you use the room for and go from there. Then create a laundry room that will be organized, decorated, and bring you joy each time you go in there.

I would love to hear what your ideas are on renovating and organizing your laundry room or any other room in your house.

Please feel free to share in the comments below.