Little by little we are making our way through the house projects. The laundry room wasn’t on the top of my list to fix because, well, laundry rooms are boring. But can I start over by saying that calling this laundry room a “room” is quite inaccurate. It’s actually a laundry “walk through.” Let’s start at the beginning…

When we walked into this house for the very first time I couldn’t believe that anyone would place the laundry far, far away from the bedrooms on our 2nd floor. “You mean I have to drag baskets of laundry all the way downstairs, through our living room, family room, and kitchen?” I said to myself and anyone else listening. I wasn’t happy about that but what I was even more unhappy about was the size of the space I had to work with. The room measured EXACTLY the width of our side-by-side washer and dryer and almost exactly twice as wide. On top of the teensy space, it was located between the doors leading from the kitchen into the garage, with both doors opening inward into the “room” and actually overlapping. Are you kidding me??

I WISH I had a before picture ’cause it was bad. Instead, let me give you a mental picture: Laundry happens. And where does that laundry go while doing it? On the floor. Oh, I forgot to mention that we don’t have any closets of any kind on our main floor. NONE. Why? Who knows. So piles and baskets of laundry plus vacuum, broom, mop, cleaning supplies, washer and dryer all in a 5′ x 6 1/2′ room with two doors opening into it from two very high traffic areas. Hmmm.

(I drew this lovely pic on the iPad but forgot to include a mop and vacuum stacked in front of everything. The stuff on top is stuff falling off of a narrow shelf. I’m a very talented artist…)

This does not make sense. Yet we made it work for 4 1/2 years until our dryer decided to cost more to repair than it was worth. Then we got a hand-me-down dryer that had been in storage and that, too, decided not to work.

In comes stackable! YES!! Look how purdy!!

I hummed and hawed for a while deciding whether I should buy just the dryer and replace the washer at a later date when it was needed but in the end I splurged and got both. I know, crazy for me as I’m definitely more of a “use what you’ve got” kind of gal.

We already had the rug from Rob’s grandparents’ time in Pakistan and the colors are perfect. (Can you see my 1 unpainted toenail? How embarrassing!)

Since the rug is more traditional and the washer/dryer more modern I decided to blend both styles together in my storage area.

I’ve always loved train racks and I finally got some. These are from Ikea and are actually really sturdy! I am left with enough floor space to put a couple of laundry baskets (or piles) there without blocking the flow of traffic. What more could a girl want? Maybe to move the plumbing and electrical behind the washer and dryer? Maybe one day.

This cute hanging is from a friend and it’s perfect here, clothespins and all!

So my cramped, cluttered, awful laundry walk through has transformed into a beautiful space that WORKS! It even looks nice when the door is left open for all to see. I couldn’t be more excited. Can you tell?