What We Regret About Our Laundry Room Makeover
It has been one year since we completed our laundry room makeover.
One year? Already? It feels like forever since we completed that project.
I suppose that means time does not fly by when you’re doing laundry every day. Shocking…said no one typing a blog post next to a giant pile of clothes to be folded.
Don’t get me wrong. We love with a capital L how this space turned out. It is a combination laundry room and pantry and it flows so nicely with the rest of the house now, particularly the kitchen. It’s how the space always should have been.
No matter how much you enjoy a room, there are usually things you would change or do differently after you’ve had time for the construction dust to settle.
Our first regret is that we did not approach this laundry room makeover sooner.
One of the reasons why we tackled our laundry room makeover in the first place is that our washing machine was shaking the house down and it had been since the day we moved in…four years earlier.
When shaking occurs, the washing machine is usually the problem, but in our case, it was the house.
You cannot set a washing machine on a rotten floor and expect there to not be problems.
Talk about an inconvenient truth!
In our denial that it was the house, we did rip that washing machine apart once or twice and installed new parts that never made the house shake less. On the downside, we were out a couple of hundred bucks. On the plus side, we are exceptionally good at washing machine repair now.
(By “we” I mean Handy Husband.)
You don’t even know how exciting it was the first time I washed clothes after we completed the laundry room makeover and I couldn’t feel the upstairs shake during the spin cycle. Did I mention the laundry room is downstairs?
Since we just experienced an earthquake in New Jersey, I can say with certainty that the washing machine shaking was micro earthquake-bad and not good for the house.
Our second regret about our laundry room makeover is not moving the dryer vent to a better location. Well, I regret this. Handy Husband regrets it a little less.
I do not know why our dryer vent is not located directly behind the dryer but it isn’t. It’s to the side, which means the dryer hose is visible. The reason why we didn’t move it at the time is because that would require cutting a new hole in the side of the house.
The project creep on this makeover was already out of control on this laundry room makeover. Siding repair seemed like the straw that might break these DIYers’ spirits at that moment, so we let it be.
The good news is the location of the dryer vent only bothers me when I look at it. I have an “avert your eyes” policy. Keeps me from seeing the dust in that area too. Haha!
The last thing I regret about our laundry room makeover is the lack of hidden storage.
I thought a great deal about storage when we did this makeover and never came up with a hidden storage solution that wouldn’t come at the sacrifice of something more important.
I’m not exaggerating when I say there is no hidden storage specifically for laundry-related items like baskets and detergent in this room.
Instead of dwelling on my lack of hidden storage, I embraced the idea of open storage. We made a niche with a shelf in the wall to hold our detergents and stain remover. I quite enjoy decanting those items now because the glass containers I selected look so pretty!
The shelves for our detergent have three coats of polyurethane on them, so they have not scratched in the last year. They also wipe up well because, let’s face it, laundry detergent is going to drip down the side of that bottle when you’ve got kids running the washing machine.
That’s a small price to pay for kids who do their own laundry.
All in all, the pros of this laundry room makeover greatly outweigh any regrets we might have about the space.
This is how the laundry room looked in 2019 on the day we moved in. Those clothes and hangers in the photo are not ours. They were left here. Did I wear them? Maybe.
Here’s that view now from roughly the same angle.
Much better, right?
Better than how it looks is that I don’t have to worry about the washer and dryer falling through the floor to the basement. I’d love to have a laundry chute but there are better ways to get one than that.
I joke about not wanting to do laundry, but I am happy to be living in this era with modern appliances. Our house dates back to the late 1700s. Many more people have lived in this house and washed clothes by hand than those of us who have pushed a couple of buttons to wash our clothes.
When I think about it that way, I have a lot to be grateful for.
What do you think about our laundry room? Do you have regrets about your own laundry room situation? I’d love to know. You can always comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.
Laundry Room Sources:
Wainscoting is custom cut but the color is Khaki Shade by Behr.
Brass clothes hanger, folds to wall
Art – thrifted
I do have a collapsible laundry basket similar to this one that I hang behind the washer. Another laundry basket sits on top of the dryer all the time because it is constantly in use. Ha!
I keep extra detergent in the basement.
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Thanks for being here today! I love sharing ideas and our projects with you. If you have time, I have another blog post for you to read.
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