It is probably easy to imagine dream renovations for most of the rooms in your home. Maybe you’d re-do your kitchen with all stainless steel appliances, or paint your bedroom a relaxing blue. Your living room might be spruced up with newly polished floors, cushioned furniture and colorful area rugs.
But given a chance, what would you do to change your laundry room? Does the idea of renovating or designing the space where you do laundry cause you to pause and scratch your head? Some basic principles can help you redesign and improve your laundry room.
First, think about efficiency. Laundry, for most of us, is a bit of a chore, but the chore becomes much easier if your laundry room is set up efficiently, allowing you to perform such tasks as ironing, folding, or loading and unloading laundry machines quickly and with minimal discomfort. Second, give yourself the best chance at keeping the room clean; there’s no point in cleaning clothes in a dirty space, and in any case your experience in any room is improved by a neat, orderly appearance. Finally, add design touches that provide an ambiance you enjoy or that match the décor of your home.
Designing for efficiency has a lot to do with space. If your laundry room is small, one of the basic ways to maximize space is to install stacked appliances, like these Stacked Washer and Dryer Combos from GE. Stacking your appliances saves space and makes it easy to transfer clothes from the washer to dryer. This strategy can also make room for convenient add-ons, such as a Hidden Helper™ Laundry Care Basket or Double Shelf from Asko. These space savers allow you to fold or sort laundry without excess bending or lifting.
When you’re thinking about efficiency, consider every task you might perform in the laundry room. Do you sort clothes for white and colored loads or for dry cleaning? Add color-coded storage bins. Do you do a lot of ironing? Built-in ironing centers, like those provided by Iron-A-Way, save space and offer convenient cabinetry options for storing and using ironing boards, irons, and related clothing products. It is important that the board is installed at a comfortable height so that you don’t have to hunch while ironing. Generally, the top of the ironing board should be level with your hip, and the same holds true for a folding table.
The key to creating an efficient room is to make it easy to move between workspaces, and to keep products and tools needed for specific tasks in common “work zones.” If you do a lot of mending, for example, consider creating a sewing area within easy reach of laundered clothes, and provide easily accessible storage for small items such as needles, thread, and scissors. The folding table should also be nearby.
Well-designed storage areas not only improve a room’s efficiency, they also encourage cleanliness. If bleach, detergent, ironing agents, and other products are shoved haphazardly on a single shelf that, on top of everything else, is difficult to reach, family members are more likely to avoid replacing bottles after each use. Spills can go unnoticed, and empty or nearly empty bottles can get shoved to the back of the shelf and remain there for months. When you’re designing or renovating your laundry room, install easily accessible cabinetry that will provide sufficient storage space. If your laundry room is large enough for more than one cabinet or shelf area, and if your appliances aren’t stacked, store products for washing near the washing machine and products such as dryer sheets near the dryer. Make sure the products that are used most often are the easiest to reach, and only purchase one bottle of each product. Dispose of products that you find you don’t use.
Décor is important to your sense of style, and influences your sense of comfort. Design your laundry room with colors that relax you (such as blue), or take a chance, if you like, and go bold with something fun. If you plan to install cabinetry, search for options that match the décor in nearby rooms of your home. If your laundry space is an extension of your kitchen or bathroom, match appliances, shelving or cabinetry, wall color, and floor patterns as needed.
With a little forethought and planning, your new laundry room can be efficient, tidy, comfortable and a – dare we say it? – an enjoyable space in which to spend your time.
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