DIY Laundry Room Makeover- Hey There, Home

Ready to see our laundry room makeover and how I took this small laundry room from boring, dark, (and too yellow) to fresh, functional, and good lookin'?

If so you're in for a treat! I'll walk you through what I did during our laundry room makeover to add a ton of laundry room storage, laundry room organization, and an overall simple yet bold laundry room design.

Laundry Room Makeover Before And After

Although the laundry room only gets used and seen by the members of my family, walking into this space before the DIY laundry room makeover didn't make doing laundry -my least favorite household task, more enjoyable.

Not only was the color in the space an awful shade of off white everywhere, it had poor lighting, a lackluster laundry room shelf, and the cabinets didn't function very well.

Laundry Room Design

The laundry room design really kicked off with a tile I fell in love with (that I later realized I couldn't afford) but that didn't stop me from recreating the look and going with a bold blue and white color palette for this space with just a bit of wood tone to warm it up.

And because this room does some heavy lifting function was really important.

With style and function in mind, I needed the laundry room makeover to:

provide more storage
provide good laundry room organization with everyday laundry necessities within easy reach
feel cohesive with the design style and color scheme of the rest of our home

The first step I take when designing any space is to think of function first. You can steal my go to steps in my free Room Design Guide + Workbook here.

Laundry Room Flooring

Like I said, the flooring in here was the starting point for the entire design of the laundry room.

It all started when my husband and I went away for our anniversary and I fell in love with the bathroom tile in our hotel room, but when I sourced it I realized that it was over $10 per square foot and that was just not in the budget for this space.

So I did some digging and found a stencil that was almost identical to the pattern of the inspiration tile and painted the existing linoleum floor to make it look like tile and it turned out better than I could have imagined! You can see the simple steps for painting vinyl floors on this post here.

Laundry Room Organization

Laundry room storage is at the center of any good laundry room organization and what I had before wasn't cutting it. I needed more functional storage, shelves, and cabinets in this space.

Laundry Room Cabinets

By removing the cabinets and replacing them with laundry room wall cabinets I more than tripled the storage.

I went with my go to for all the cabinetry in my home (Ikea kitchen cabinets) and made it look built in. You just can't beat the options for organization with these cabinets, and this deep blue added a bold color to this space and fit perfectly with my whole home color scheme.

Laundry Room Storage

There are a lot of obvious things that need to be stored in the laundry room like household cleaners, laundry detergent, and a place to put dirty laundry while it awaits being washed, but with all of the laundry room cabinets I added, I was able to have space for even more!

These shelves for the laundry room inside a cabinet are spaced to hold two laundry baskets that are easy to reach in and place everyday dirty items like kitchen towels in while they await being washed.

The pull out drawers we installed in our pantry cabinet are the best, so when it came to storing our household cleaners and detergents, I installed two pull out drawers in this cabinet to maximize the space. -I also keep my lint can in here.

In the upper cabinets we store things we don't need often, like extra toilet paper, the cat carrier, the iron, and some household maintenance items like light bulbs.

Where to put the litter box?

Another thing this laundry room makeover had to accomplish was litter box storage.

The last two bottom cabinets made for a perfect place to put the litter box in the laundry room. In one cabinet we left the door off for the litter box and had a drawer above for easy access to liners.

And in the cabinet next to it I installed a pull out drawer to hide the cat litter storage container and the Litter Genie. Being able to pull the drawer out makes this chore easy.

Laundry Room Shelving

Most laundry room shelves are builder grade particle board with absolutely no style and often very little function.

By building a deep laundry room shelf that goes over the washer and dryer I'm able to reach everyday laundry necessities quickly and easily and add a bit of style with some simple laundry room decorations.

Laundry Room Decor

There are a lot of laundry room decor ideas out there but my rule of thumb in a space that has a main job to do is to figure out how to make the items I need in a space work as decor too.

On the shelf above the washer and dryer I added some fun laundry room wall decor with simple lidded jars to hold the things I need when doing laundry like dryer balls, detergent sheets, and essential oils placed on a soap dish for a little extra style.

Laundry Room Lighting

The old laundry room light fixture was a long florescent light that gave off a really harsh yellow light.

By replacing it with a simple ceiling mounted LED light fixture, I was able to brighten up the space with a flood of white light which made the blue tones in this room pop.

Takeaways From Our DIY Laundry Room Remodel

This laundry room makeover was a really fun project to take on, even though it took a bit to complete because life is busy and I had to work in stages.

Just because no one sees a space in your home besides your family, doesn't mean it shouldn't look and feel amazing.
Sticking to a simple color palette in a small space keeps things simple and decisions are easy.
Small spaces are the perfect opportunity to go bold - I wouldn't consider using a tile like this in my kitchen but in this small space it's perfect and so fun!
You can never have too much hidden storage.
Thinking about how you will use a space is key. Stand in the space (even if in your mind) and imagine how you will move, what you will need, etc. and design around that.

Thanks for coming over and taking a look at our laundry room makeover! Details about some of the DIYs that went into this space are coming soon!