Of all the changes we’re planning for our home, the laundry room/closet combo might be the one I’m looking forward to most. I can’t stop dreaming and planning this room!
I had never had a proper laundry room before. In our previous two homes, the washer and dryer were in the garage. In the apartment we lived in right after we got married, we had a laundry closet that was right in the entryway. And now in our house, the washer and dryer are in the “sunroom,” which is a nice name for the worst room in the house that now only looks a little better than it does in the picture below because I did some organizing there ago. a few weeks .
I’ve wanted to tear down that room since we bought the house, but it’s basically a storage room that also houses our washer, dryer, and water heater. So until I can relocate those things, the room has to stay. At least it stays behind these closed doors, so neither I nor our guests have to look at it…
Since this will be new to me, the idea of having a nice room where I can have my washer and dryer, nice cabinets, and organization is exciting to me. And the more I think about it, the more I love the idea of a laundry room and closet combo. It just makes sense to me.
So I spent some time last weekend using IKEA’s Pax closet planner and their kitchen planner to plan each side of the room. I really wish they had a built-in planner where a combination of cabinets and wardrobes could be used, but they don’t. So I had to use one planner to plan the closet side and the other to plan the laundry side. The kitchen cabinet planner is much more robust than the closet planner, which has far fewer bells and whistles. However, it is still very useful.
The room I will be converting into the laundry room/closet combo is our current guest room. It’s the room we’ve been using as our master bedroom for the last three years (I think). That room looks like this (when it’s clean )…
It actually doesn’t look like that anymore even when it’s clean. The painted floor has not held up as well in this room as the floor in my studio. (I used a different paint and the paint I used on the studio floor is far superior). Also, we no longer have that wooden bed base because it didn’t work with our adjustable bed. But everything else is more or less the same.
This is the room labeled “guest bedroom” on our current floor plan, and it measures 11′ 4″ x 15′ 10″…
And once all the changes we are planning are made, this room will be the laundry room and the master closet in this area that will make up the master suite.
By the way, my mom and I spent about an hour over lunch last Wednesday going over the floor plan with a fine-tooth comb, seriously weighing the suggestion that several people needed to maintain the guest bedroom and home gym where they are located. , and convert them into the addition to the master bedroom and laundry room/closet. We considered all the possibilities, made a list of pros and cons, discussed them in excruciating detail, and both came to the conclusion that the home gym and guest bedroom should remain in the addition. I’m not going to go over all that discussion, reasons, pros and cons and details, but know that we considered everything. And for us (Matt and I), this arrangement works best.
What I imagine is that when you enter the room from the hallway, the right side will be the laundry room side. And after trying many different layouts (including stacking the washer and dryer), this is what I came up with…
I wanted to keep the washer and dryer as close to the window wall as possible because, as you can see from the floor plan, that part of the room sticks out further than the neighboring room. That means the dryer can vent to the outside without having to have a long run of duct inside the wall.
But I didn’t want the washing machine to be against the wall, so I added a very narrow cabinet where I can store tall, thin items like an ironing board, a folding clothesline, etc.
If you’re trying to stay oriented, the view above looks like this view below right now…
And then the rest is pretty simple. I wanted as much storage as possible in tall cabinets, but I definitely want a sink in there too. So I had to have at least enough counter space for the sink. But I didn’t want it to feel crowded in there, so I gave it a little breathing room (and gave myself some elbow room) with a lower cabinet further to the side. That left room for two tall cabinets on the right end of the wall. And then I filled as many upper cabinets as possible.
That view above looks like this right now…
Two things I want but couldn’t show in the IKEA planner are (1) a place to put a bar to hang empty hangers so they are easily accessible near the dryer, and (2) a countertop above the washer and dryer.
Here’s a view from above, which I always find useful to be sure there’s some wiggle room. I don’t want any cabinets jammed against the walls and I want to make sure there are a few extra inches to build cabinets around the washer and dryer. And as you can see, there’s plenty of extra space for all of that. The IKEA planner doesn’t have a lot of settings that allow you to get things in place down to the inch, but as long as I can see that I have some wiggle room, I can work with that.
The cabinets for the laundry room side cost $6,594.88 according to the kitchen planner, but I’m sure that’s not exactly correct. The final price will depend on which doors and drawer fronts you choose, as they vary in price depending on the style. And that’s just the cabinets. I will also need a sink, faucet, and countertop.
Next, I used the PAX Wardrobe Planner to plan the other side of the room, which will be the closet side. I couldn’t even figure out how to add doors and windows with the PAX closet planner, so the door you see below is one I added by taking a screenshot of the IKEA planner and then using my photo editing software to add the doors. . Anyway, this is what I envision for the left side of the room, although I may swap out the deep shelves for more hanging storage. I need to think carefully before placing the order.
The first time I played with this planner, I just had the cabinets lined up on one wall with nothing curling into the adjacent walls. But that plan used 24-inch-deep shelves for things like shoes, purses and folded sweaters. Personally, I’d rather not store my folded shoes, purses, and sweaters on shelves this deep, so I found that if I changed the end unit to the 14-inch-deep style, I’d have enough room to wrap another 14-inch-deep unit around it. the adjacent wall. I can fit an additional 39 inch unit in there and still have a couple of inches between the side of the unit and the edge of the door trim. It’s tight but it fits!
I also started with a narrower cabinet on the long wall, which left me with completely unusable space in the corner behind where the two cabinets formed the “L” in the corner. I swapped out that cabinet on the long wall for a wider cabinet. I figured the hidden area can be used for items that are out of season and I don’t need access to them right now. I want to squeeze every inch of storage space out of this room as possible, so I didn’t want that corner to be 100% unusable dead space.
The cabinets for that side of the room cost $2,178.80 according to the PAX planner. I think that number is closer to accurate because I don’t plan on using doors on the closets. The price may change as I add or subtract the number of shelves I order and as I think about whether I want to add any drawer organizers. But I think that number won’t change drastically at all.
I want to finalize this plan soon because I would like to order the cabinets within the next two weeks. My studio is practically finished, except for a couple of small projects. Next, I’m going to get to work and finish our new bedroom. And when I’m done with the bedroom, I want to have everything ready to start in this room. But every time I open the PAX planner, I see a notice that they are having supply issues right now, so I want to order everything as soon as possible so I don’t have to wait for the cabinets to arrive when I’m ready to start. installing them.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 upper that my husband Matt and I purchased in 2013. Matt has MS and can’t do physical labor, so I do most of the work in the house alone. You can learn more about me here.
