Laundry Room Before and After

A year ago, we started the addition to the second floor of our home. And we figured that while we were at it, lets remodel the laundry room too! (Aren't those famous last words during a home project... "while we're at it...."?)

Let's take a look at the before shots. Clearly these before photo's were not staged. We were about to begin construction and I was emotionally DONE with the laundry room. So the not so pretty room was REALLY not pretty when these images were shot. The pictures below show which walls were moved during construction.

There wasn't a single counter top. The only usable space was the top of the washer and dryer.

The wall below didn't move. This is the future site of our mudroom bench. Do you see that little hanger with 4 hooks? That was the only place we had to hang clothes to dry. Sometimes when there was a lot to hang up, the items in the back sometimes wouldn't dry completely. They would then have to be re-washed because of their musty smell. Very frustrating.

Cue construction outside (and cue chaotic family life indoors! Think 7 days with no washer or dryer. Not the end of the world, but almost the end of clean clothing!)

The first step was digging up part of our front porch.

Now it's starting to look like something! Hard to believe that this small area will make such a huge difference in our laundry room!

Below you can see where they bumped the wall out 24" into the garage. And where they bumped the window wall out 4 feet toward the front of the house. (Can you see that ugly linoleum flooring? It has a touch of pink in it. No thank you!)

And now for some after pictures. Drum roll please........

The sink moved to the new wall that was bumped out into the garage.

And the washer and dryer were pushed into the 4 foot bump out, giving us so much more room.

All of that extra space allowed us to put a row of cabinets and a mudroom bench along this wall, where the sink used to be.

Here are a few of my favorite things about our new laundry room. The mudroom bench top was used from a 200 year old piece of wood. I asked the builder to put something rustic in there since kids would be sitting on it, standing on it, throwing bags on it.... I didn't want to have to worry about scratches. This piece of wood was perfect!

And the cabinet to the left of the mudroom bench fits our ironing board and vacuum cleaner....two things that always seemed to be in the way before the remodel.

Our new drying rack, purchased from Ballard Designs. It is so unbelievably handy (and it closes too when not in use). We have both this and a clothing rod above the sink to hang up clothes. No more musty smelling clothes!!