2 Quick & Easy (And Frugal!) Laundry Room Fixes

My laundry room is in a sad, dark corner of our unfinished basement which is unlikely to be finished any time soon. When we moved in, it was pretty much just the giant industrial looking washer and dryer and a dingy looking set tub next to it. There was nowhere to actually do anything except wash and dry which meant lugging everything upstairs to fold on the couch.

Over time, I’ve tried to make the corner my own by adding small touches to make it more functional and also better looking.  I dream of a gorgeous laundry area with fresh paint, good lighting and smart storage – but until miracles happen, I’m trying to make do with what I have.

Luckily, one thing I have is a very handy husband! In the past two years he has been hard at work slowly turning our Starter Home into a Dream Home.

Not long after moving in, he built me a floating counter to fold laundry on using re-purposed wood from other projects. We always seem to have spare lumber lying about and that counter top was from an old piece of furniture we had disassembled at some point! So the counter was essentially free.

Just this weekend he built me a little shelf above the counter to keep all our laundry supplies on. They were previously all being stored on top of the dryer or sometimes on my folding counter- meaning I had nowhere to fold!

The shelf was unbelievably easy to build – we went to a hardware store and bought two pieces of wood (8 inches wide I think) and then cut one in half to form the basic shelf. Using the other piece of wood and a little saw thingy (I’m very technical, I know), he was able to cut rounded corners to put on the ends to give it more of a finished look.

He sanded the ends quickly and then nailed it all into place above the counter using a stud finder to make sure it’s secure. At the hardware store I picked out a couple of cute hooks to hang on the shelf – you could also hang a towel rod or nobs – whatever you think would be most useful basically!

Now my laundry room may not be a beautiful and relaxing  retreat but it’s much nicer looking than before and more functional, too!