To be honest, laundry is one of the most annoying chores ever. And why? Well, the first reason is the spacing. You see, most urbanists suffer a lot when it comes to spacing. That’s because most laundry rooms are tiny thus posing a challenge on how to fit all your daily laundry essentials. The second reason is the setup. Since its small, organizing everything to avoid clutter becomes another challenging endeavor. Now, although the challenge is huge, our team of experts has gathered immense information from exclusive interior designers to compose these nine very small laundry room ideas that will help to transform your cluttered laundry room into an eye-catching space.
Now, taking your dirty clothes to your local laundromat can sometimes be a costly affair. This, therefore, makes having a washer and a dryer in your laundry room a huge bonus.
Thankfully, with these nine hacks and tricks, you will manage to utilize any nook and cranny in your confined laundry space to create more room to breathe and to allow proper air circulation. With that said, please read on.
What is a Laundry Room and Why do You Need One?
Now, a laundry room, also called a utility room, is a precious space within your house/home designated for the primary purpose of storing some of your unused household appliances. Some people can use this space to store large fridges and freezers. However, the primary purpose of a laundry room is to keep laundry essentials such as the washing machine, the tumble dryer, ironing board, clothes steam presser, and dirty garments.
For most people living in urban apartments, there’s a high need for a laundry space to help declutter other rooms such as the bedroom. For those homeowners with kids and pets around, there’s a high need to set a designated space where you can perform all the mucky, grimy, and messy jobs such as keeping pet bowls, littler trays, old coats, gumboots, and any dirty litter from around the house.
What’s the Right Size for a Laundry Room?
Just before we get to our main topic, I think it’s best if we can discuss a point or two regarding laundry room sizing. Now, according to most interior design experts, not forgetting contractors and expert plumbers, the minimum size of any laundry room should be about 9 ft. wide and 11 ft. long. Of course, bigger is better.
The door leading to the room should measure somewhere from 30 inches to 32 inches. Since the nature of these special rooms involves water, the floor should have tiles and a waterproof membrane. A floor drain should also be fitted at the center of the room with the floor slanting towards the center.
At least, with such conduction, you’ll never worry about water leaking from the laundry room to the rest of the house when doing the laundry, when bathing your pets or following accidental pipe damage such as a pipe burst.
9 Very Small Laundry Room Ideas: An Ultimate Guide
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1. Hang Your Clothes to Dry
One of the biggest challenges of any small laundry room is dealing with clothes, especially those button-down cotton office shirts, that need to self-dry. Such clothes will definitely need to be removed from the dryer while still damp to air dry them to prevent them from shrinking. So, if you’re not lucky enough to convert your bathroom into a drying chamber or add a clothing line in your balcony, then you don’t have to worry as you can hang your clothes in your laundry room.
But how? First, you can fill any unused walls with tension rods that can be used to hold the hangers. Secondly, you can mount simple steel rods underneath the laundry cabinets to create a perfect spot for hanging your clothes. Thirdly, you can hang a simple ladder on the ceiling using chains which will then support the hangers.
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2. Add More Shelves
Supposing your machines (both the washer and the dryer) have a front-loading design, then you shouldn’t complain about lack of space when there’s enough to utilize. Instead of allowing this top space to gather lint, why not add some shelves all the way to the ceiling?
You see, with selves fitted all the way up, you can create enough space to organize your clean towels and beddings and still spare some space to organize your cleaning detergents and soaps. You can also use the lowest shelve just above your machine as the ironing board just to save on more space.
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3. Think of a Spot That Seems Unusable
Since you’re dealing with a small laundry room, any unused corner space is an asset. So, after organizing everything, that small space at the corner that seems to be unusable can perfectly house a vertically adjustable wire shelving.
This wire shelving can be fitted with multiple shelves from top to the center where you can keep your detergents, iron box, and some folded clothes. You can add a metal rod just below the last shelf (which is in the middle) where you can put some hangers to hang some of your ironed clothes.
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4. Add Baskets
Although we’ve mentioned adding selves, baskets to are also a brilliant idea for any tiny laundry room. Now, baskets are usable in several ways. First, you can use them to carry dirty clothes from your bedroom/kids’ room to the laundry.
Secondly, you can use separate baskets to sort the clothes out from those that are dirty to those that are already clean and need to be transported back to the closet or wardrobe. By doing this, you not only amp up your storage option, but also reduce the clutter at a considerable level.
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5. Add a Laundry Cart
Another excellent idea that can work on small laundry rooms is using a laundry cart to hold all your laundry supplies. Here, you can build your own DIY laundry cart and fit it with shelves, a chest of drawers, closet rods on the sides to hold the hangers, decorative hooks to hold laundry bags, and an ironing board at the top where you can do the ironing.
The best thing about this laundry cart is that it has wheels at the bottom for easy mobility around the room.
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6. Go Vertical
Who said that dryers and washers should only be organized horizontally? Well regardless of how huge they might seem to appear, these laundry machines can also be stacked vertically one on top of the other to save horizontal floor space.
By doing this, you tend to save more floor space which can be used to place a narrow cabinet with shelves. These shelves can be used to store all your cleaning soaps, detergents, softeners as well as for organizing folded clothes.
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7. Level Up
Alternatively, you can opt to level up and use the available horizontal space to save the vertical space for installing shelves and cabinets. Now, there are two ways you can create some extra space here. First, you can opt to buy newer models of washers and dryers to take advantage of the pedestal drawers underneath them. With this space, you can keep some of your dirty clothes, orphan socks that don’t have their partners or you can organize all your detergents, soaps, and softeners.
Secondly, if your laundry machines are not fitted with pedestals, you can opt to loft them a foot or two off the ground to create some space underneath. This space can be used to fit two baskets which can function as pedestals.
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8. Use the Space Behind the Door
Another excellent idea that works for small laundry rooms is utilizing the space at the back of the door. If you’ve researched jewelry armoires, then you know how you can utilize the space behind the door. Here, you only need to add a hanging wire storage rack that can be mounted on the door using hooks.
This wide rack can serve as an excellent storage spot for some of your essentials such as a toolbox, tissue papers, detergents, orphan socks, and other tiny essentials. You can even opt to add some hooks beneath the last shelf to hang your raincoats and aprons.
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9. Sacrifice Your Closet Space
What if you live in an apartment that doesn’t have a laundry room? Well, if you’re lucky enough to have a large closet, why not sacrifice it by turning it into a laundry space? If that’s the case, then you’ll need to be really creative and think outside the box.
First, you need to stack the washer and the dryer on top of each other in a vertical position to create more room. The space remaining at the top of the machines can be used to fit two small baskets or some shelves.
Secondly, you can use the space on the other side to create some shelves, cabinetry, and a countertop for ironing your clothes.
Conclusion
As we conclude, allow me to mention that a laundry room is a basic necessity for any homeowner. It’s something that you definitely need even if sometimes it doesn’t sound like you do. It’s more of a designated space that allows you to declutter the rest of your house.
Since a laundry room is part of your home’s backbone, it, therefore, needs to be kept clean and tidy using any or even a combination of these insightful hacks we’ve mentioned above. By decluttering your laundry room, you’ll not only give it a gorgeous look but also make ironing and doing the laundry a fun endeavor.