Laundry Rooms - All the Tricks You Need to Know
Laundry rooms are a great resource to have in the home and are becoming more and more popular. But these rooms don’t have to be just functional spaces. If you plan and decorate yours well, it can make the chores much more pleasant.
That being said, good organization for laundry rooms is about more than just washing and drying clothes. Storage is a very important part of how you design this space. It makes everything much easier for you when you have places to put things.
So, if you plan yours right, it can look absolutely gorgeous and still be functional. But making good laundry rooms does take a few tricks. For example, you have to know where to put your washer and dryer, how much space you need overall, and what part of the house a laundry room would work best in.
What are laundry rooms?
Historically, laundry rooms were part of British houses as a kind of attachment to the kitchen. In France, on the other hand, you would see washing appliances in the bathroom.
The point of connecting your laundry room and the kitchen is that it’s the part of the house with the best access to water pipes and electricity. You need lots of both of those. In the past, laundry rooms were a part of the house mostly used by service staff.
These service areas were multi-use. They were there for everything from washing to storing clothes and food. It’s only in more recent times that they have taken on the more specific use for just laundry.
Starting in the 1970s and 80s, washers and driers started to become much quieter. That influenced the construction of a lot of new houses and buildings. Floor plans were much more likely to have laundry rooms close to other parts of the house like the basement, closet, or master bedroom.
A coveted space
Laundry rooms are highly coveted parts of the home because they give you an entirely separate space to deal with washing, drying, and folding your clothes. You don’t have to do it in other parts of the home, like the kitchen, which have other purposes.
A well-organized laundry room gives off a sense of tranquility. That can have a major impact on your overall well-being. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small space – the effect is ultimately the same!
Basic things to keep in mind
Whether you’re going to dedicate an entire room to the laundry, or use just part of one, all laundry areas need some basic elements to function well.
The basic idea behind having one is to keep your laundry away from other parts of the house and the activities you do in them. It also means having somewhere to put your washer and dryer. But that’s not all: you should also factor in storage space so that you have somewhere to put clean and dirty clothes.
It can’t hurt to have a sink or water source of its own, either. If you have enough space, you can even put your iron in there. What that will mean is that you can have a space reserved especially for ironing your clothes. You won’t have to bother to get out the ironing board every time you need to iron something.
If you do think you’ll have a space for ironing in your laundry room, make sure that you have some wicker trays and baskets (or something similar) where you can fold your clean, ironed clothing. You’ll also want to have some kind of bar, as a temporary place to put clothes you don’t need to fold.
All the laundry room options out there
If you plan the space well and add some storage, you can even use it as a place to store things like your kitchen utensils, vacuum, mops, and mop buckets. You can also use other spaces in this room to put in some shelves or crates for all your rags and cleaning products.
Don’t forget to decorate it
You probably spend a large amount of time washing, drying, and ironing your clothes every week. So, if you’re going to make a room especially for those purposes, it should be pleasant to be in, shouldn’t it? You don’t want it to be a room that makes you want to get out as quickly as possible.
That means taking into account things like lighting. If you can have natural lighting, that’s ideal. You can also make things the same color by painting the furniture and appliances and picking out warm materials like wood. You could also line your baskets with things like cotton or linen to be even gentler on your clothes.
Last but not least, don’t forget that this space can never smell too good. If you look around stores or online, you’ll find a huge variety of air fresheners and scents that smell like clean clothing, cotton, and fresh fabric. Remember, a lot of the magic of the rooms in your home is in the details. Now start designing your perfect laundry room!