I’m back for another week of the laundry room transformation!
I’ve mentioned it before, but this small space needs to serve a couple different purposes for our family. Laundry, yes, but we also need it to function as a mudroom. Since it is directly connected to the garage, the laundry room is the main entrance our family uses to enter the house. I needed a functional space to put shoes, jackets, and now that winter is coming – hats, mittens, and scarves, too!
The laundry “room” is hardly more than a laundry hallway, but there is a small nook sandwiched between the bathroom and a closet that is currently serving as our mudroom. Eventually, we plan to do a gut renovation to remove the bathroom and expand the hallyway into a true laundry room + mudroom but for now, we need to make the most of this little nook!
Previously we had six hooks and a shoe rack here, but it was unorganized and didn’t really serve our purposes well. There was nowhere to sit, no storage for mittens/hats/etc, and not enough hooks for our needs. Here’s a little look back:
I really wanted to swap out the shoe rack for a more functional bench storage, but it was hard to find a bench that fit my needs and was the right size for the wall. I finally came across this bench and the dimensions were perfect! It took me a while to find the right color (I ordered it in three different colors!) I landed on Amber Brown and it works great in the space!
I removed the shoes that no longer fit my kids or were summer shoes and there is now plenty of storage for the ones we’ll use this fall and winter. The bench is perfect for my kids to sit on to put on their shoes and bonus – the lid lifts and perfectly fits all their winter gear!
I originally thought I would have to build a hanging coat storage system to include a shelf and space for hats and gloves, but since the bench fit everything, I was able to just upgrade the hanging storage with a simple matte black accordion rack. This one had ten hanging hooks so I have more space to easily hang all our coats, jackets, and a couple extra hats. It works great and was super easy to install!
I also spent some time reorganizing the closet so I could move the large dog food container inside and that helped free up a lot of room too! This little nook may be low on space, but it’s high on function now and will serve our family well until we tackle the larger renovation in a few years.
There’s only one more week of the One Room Challenge and for once, I’m done ahead of time! All the major changes are done and all that’s left is a little tweaking of the shelves/decor this week. I’m excited to be almost finished with this room transformation!
Be sure to check out all the other One Room Challenge participants here!