It’s now been 2 years since we moved into our home and overall I’m so happy with our house — it has great flow, there’s no wasted space and I love the feel of it — that is, except for our laundry!
As we were building, I realised that our dining room was very tight. It would have been a squeeze to fit large dining furniture… and I wanted a space large enough to entertain family and friends. So we decided to relocate our laundry into the garage, allowing us to make the dining room a larger space. We made this decision relatively last minute and didn’t put any thought into our laundry whatsoever. As a result, what we ended up with was some random cabinetry along one side of our garage and I’ve never liked this as a laundry solution. Now it’s finally time to do something about it!
Related article: Laundry renovation reveal: Gina’s new laundry
Related article: How to style your laundry
Laundry now
Here is the best my laundry has ever looked with some very over-exposed photography and moving everything out of my laundry space…
… In reality, this is how my laundry usually looks — a complete bomb site where hardware covers the bench, and I can barely walk through the cluttered floor.
What makes this even worse is that we have a door by our garage that many people use as an entry. So it’s like ‘Ta da, welcome to my mess of a garage/laundry’ — not the kind of first impression I want to create.
I’ve decided to put some thought and effort into our laundry space. As you can see, it’s one of my biggest building regrets, and enough is enough!
Improvements I intend to make
Definitely on the ‘to do’ list in here is:
- reconfigure cabinetry to integrate washing machine
- tile floor because this stained concrete slab is just YUCK
- build a wall to divide the laundry from the garage so it will become a laundry/mud room
- possibly render or plaster the red brick back wall so the overall space feels lighter and brighter
- style and make it feel like a welcoming space.
The past few weeks I’ve been getting quotes from various trades and fingers crossed my new laundry will be complete by mid-November.
Next week, I’m going to share more of my laundry inspiration and product selections and I’d LOVE your suggestions and ideas too xx
Update
See my completed laundry reno here. I’m so happy with how we resolved this space and I’d love you to let me know what you think!
Number one suggestion, epoxy resin on the garage floor! You can turn ugly stained concrete into something beautiful and very hard-wearing and easy to clean. There’s plenty on youtube to have a look at.
Thanks for your suggestion Henry! We ended up building a wall and tiling the laundry floor but I have been looking into epoxy resin for the rest of the garage floor. Maybe you’ll see a DIY from me in a few months 😉
What do you think of converting laundries into home offices? My laundry currently comes off my kitchen but this door could be closed off in favour of double French doors coming off our entry way. The laundry would then be moved to the garage? Does this add of decrease value to the house?
Hi Cinzia, good questions! Unfortunately there’s no simple answer though as it depends on a few factors such as:
– if you move the laundry to your garage, would you still have internal access to the laundry or would you have to walk outside to access it? If you need to walk outside, I wouldn’t move your laundry as it could deter buyers
– what kind of laundry solution could you put in your garage? My garage was oversized so I created a laundry room and it feels like it was part of the original design. You can see the finished laundry here https://stylecurator.com.au/laundry-renovation-reveal/
Perhaps a different solution could be to keep your laundry in the same place but turn it into a Euro style laundry where it is hidden behind cabinetry and this may still offer the opportunity to create a study space?
For example, in this episode of Love It Or List It Australia, you can see how Neale Whitaker created a Euro laundry in the kitchen https://www.lifestyle.com.au/property/love-it-or-list-it-australia-style-inspiration-from-episode-10.aspx
Hope that helps!
Thank you for putting up the ‘reality’ pic! Cause I did NOT believe you when you said it was dirty and messy until I saw that 🙂
Haha, and in that reality pic I’d cleared the floor! I’m telling you my house gets very messy Dan – trying to work while juggling a toddler means something has to slip and often it’s my house cleaning, lol 🙂