I'm here today to introduce you to our first project of 2019 - THE LAUNDRY ROOM!!!

This is the first of two projects we have in the works over here on the home front and I'm SO EXCITED!!! If you remember, this laundry room was one of the rooms I was the most jazzed about when we moved in to this house. Our last house didn't have a real laundry room. Just a little pad in the basement for the washer and dryer. It was dark, damp, scary - not a happy place to spend a lot of time. But the laundry room in this house is conveniently located on the first floor, HAS A WINDOW, a laundry shoot and is a decent size, so I have been thankful for it everyday, despite it's blah appearance.

This room had a lot of potential but it also had some flaws from a layout perspective. There were 4 doors in this laundry room, 3 of which swung in at each other when opened. 

We removed the entry door and replaced it with an antique barn door we refurbished last year during our mudroom project. This definitely helped the situation, but the two doors covering the linen closet still made the space awkward. On top of the doors, this room (like the future home office space) had become a catchall.

In addition to the obvious, washer, dryer, hampers and sink this room housed a freezer a table saw, table saw stand, two vacuums, boxes of office supplies/documents that were never unpacked from our move (3 years ago...gasp!), cleaning supplies, beer making jars and buckets and other random odds and ends that I would just shove in there to get them out of my way in our main living area. It was a hot mess. Earlier this year we started talking through how and where to organize all of this stuff and decided everything currently in the laundry room would either be going to the linen towers in the guest bath (towels and sheets) a shed that we plan to build in the backyard (table saw, misc. tools, paint gun, etc.), the home office (giant box of files, paper and office supplies) or would be staying in the laundry room. Even with a lot of the items getting moved out of this space we still had a good deal we needed to store, so we decided the best plan of attack was to remove the french doors covering the linen closet and then build out the shelving inside. The closet came with two wire shelves, leaving a ton of wasted space.

Up until this point I had always housed my rolling laundry hamper in this closet, but in order to really optimize the storage this thing needed to go. That's when we decided we would stack our washer and dryer and then build out some shelving to the right of that to house laundry baskets. There will be a countertop on top of the shelving for me to use as a folding area and a hanging rod overhead attaching from the side of the washer and dryer surround and the wall.

The linen closet will get built-out with nothing but shelves all the way up. SO MUCH STORAGE!!! 

A few weeks ago the freezer died (with stuff inside - UGH!!) so he is gone now too. This side of the room is still somewhat of a question mark as we decide what type of sink to get and if we will go back in with another freezer, a second refrigerator or maybe nothing? Still some details to figure out, but TILE STARTED TODAY so we are rolling full steam ahead! Don't forget to follow along on instagram for all of the behind the scenes happenings between now and the next post!

All photos are my own.