Our Laundry

Now..

And before..

Much to my lovely husband's bewilderment, I placed a great deal of importance on the new laundry during our renovation planning. I like to refer to myself as Dame Washalot (of The Magic Faraway Tree fame). So, having no space to wash, sort, dry, fold was a daily stress in our old laundry. 

The two most important items on my wish list were double troughs and a (concealed) place for the laundry baskets. Next was storage for the vacuum, mop, steps, buckets, iron/ironing board and further storage for the cleaning products and various other bits and bobs.

The laundry may have been high on my list, however, it didn't rate highly in the renovation budget. And after receiving two quotes from cabinet makers, I realised I was going to have to get creative. Out came the Ikea catalogue and my scale rule to design a laundry made entirely of Ikea kitchen cabinets on one side and Ikea wardrobes on the other. The memory of assembling it all still makes me feel tired.. particularly when you realise you have drilled all the hinges in the wrong way and have to take all the doors off. To make myself feel better, I found an offcut of Alpine White stone for the benchtop - beautiful.

A difficult 'function over form' decision was made with the washing machine. Our top loader is quite new and I like the efficiency of these models, so although it would have been better aesthetically to have a front loader that fitted nicely under one long slab of stone, I had to stay with the top loader - and it does look fine. 

We combined the old study, laundry, toilet and bathroom to create the new laundry, mud room (created out of spare space behind the new powder room), powder room and main bathroom. The laundry door is recycled from our old family room - I love the glass.

I used Porters Paints 'Sable', a gorgeous shade of taupe on the walls with Haymes Worn White for the trims, combined with earthy grey/brown tiles. 

My beautiful two year old arranged the flowers for the 'photo shoot', she went back in several times this afternoon to admire her work! She isn't missing dragging four baskets of washing twice a week for months to the laundromat...and neither am I!