Laundry Room Refresh

One of my least favorite rooms in our house, which happens to be used multiple times a day, is our laundry room/pantry/everything room, located between the kitchen and the dining room. I’m kind of embarrassed to even show this space…but here it is!

Our house is over 30 years old, and having a laundry room on the first floor while all of your bedrooms are on the second floor is already inconvenient. Add to that, no folding space, no hanging space, no drying rack, limited storage, and cupboards that I couldn’t reach, and I had had it with this room!

Sometime during the blur of 2020, I started to tackle making changes to this room. Changing the location wasn’t possible, so I started with a few small updates, including moving all of the “food” pantry items into cupboards in our kitchen. We don’t have a need for a big pantry because we don’t use that many dry goods as a family of three, and we happen to have a lot of kitchen cabinets!

Once we’d cleared out the food, my husband and I sold the pedestal drawers under our washer and dryer and bought and installed an inexpensive stacking kit from Home Depot. This would give us room to build some cabinetry for additional storage, folding, and hanging. We also went on the hunt for some small baskets and canisters that could fit on the very narrow shelves which already existed on one side of the room.

Then the painting began. As you can see, the room was originally a bright blue that had gotten pretty dinged up before we even moved in, so it took at least three coats of my tried and trusted Simply White by Benjamin more to give this space the bright and light feel we have in the rest of the house.

Things were looking up, but there was still A LOT of work to do. Here’s a snapshot of one sort of “finished” spot, with the rest of the “still on the to do list” space cropped out!

I linked my baskets and other items below, but keep reading for more progress!

And there she sat! Do you guys do this, too? We were pretty excited about our progress, and the next steps weren’t crystal clear to us. Then school start, and this project went on what felt like a permanent hold. We were out of time and inspiration, so I was thrilled when HoneyCanDo reached out to me to partner up and get this project going again!

*This post was written in partnership with HoneyCanDo. All the opinions and creative content are my own. Maryandbrightblog.com may contain affiliate links. Click HERE for full disclosure. *

HoneyCanDo has everything you need for organizing your home, so my only challenge was to pick just ONE spot to feature their products, because I could use something in EVERY room of my house AND my classroom! Their product offering is THAT versatile. I did finally settle on a few items I couldn’t live without. The first one is actually three incredible “snake charmer” nesting baskets.

They give an upscale look at an affordable price, they are big enough to store all kind of home items, and they have lids! They are well-constructed, durable, and gorgeous; my only dilemma was where to put them! Yes, of course I had been focused on my laundry room refresh, but they look good ANY where in my home.

Ultimately, I conducted a poll on Instagram, and guess what? Everyone voted for the laundry room! The universe knew I needed to stay focused on that room, and the baskets gave us the additional out-of-sight storage we needed.

The other product I decided on is this folding, wall-mount drying rack. I really needed a place to put items straight out of the washer, but we have NO extra floor space in our laundry room. This drying rack was the perfect solution. I love the way it looks, it was a cinch to hang by myself, and it looks and feels like it is made with quality and durability in mind.

There is still more to do on this never-ending laundry room project, including building that cabinetry next to the newly stacked washer and dryer, but in the meantime, we’ve made some significant progress and solved some of our laundry room problems thanks to our friends at HoneyCanDo. If you want to purchase any of these items or choose from the other hundreds of products they carry, you can use this code for 20% off your purchase: MARYANDBRIGHT.

I have seen so many new, gorgeous laundry rooms in newly built homes all over Instagram, but for those of us with less than ideal spaces, we have to make do with what we have. What are your small laundry space must-haves? If you haven’t already, you can SUBSCRIBE to my emails here, and be the first to know about my new projects and posts.

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