Three Clever Tips To Maximize The Space In Your Laundry Room
Author:Lindsey ShookBy: Laurie Haefele of Haefele Design
Smart space planning and luxurious materials have a place in every room of your home, even where you wash your linens. A well-designed laundry room is one of the best ways I know to bring luxury into your day-to-day routine. Laundry rooms are one of the most practical rooms in the home and they are also one of the most overlooked when it comes to style and functionality. Most laundry rooms are small to begin with and because most people don’t have the extra square footage to expand walls, we achieve maximum efficiency in this space by focusing our design on two important aspects: counter and storage space.
Add a well lit countertop over your washer and dryer for extra folding space. In this Marina Del Rey home (above) I used a Calcutta gold marble counter top to create a folding surface above Miele washers and a dryer. The curved mosaic backsplash uses the same Calcutta gold marble for a clean and polished look. Proper lighting is especially important in the laundry room as you need to see stains on clothes. I always install LED strip under cabinet lights to provide proper task lighting.
Think about laundry room accessories that can be installed that take up minimal storage space and can be hidden when not in use. In this Malibu multi-use room (above), laundry essentials stow away behind floor-to-ceiling cabinets. Add a pull out drying rack for sweaters and tilt down hanging racks. Build a fold out ironing board into the wall or into a tall cabinet. Add a pull out trash and pull out cleaning supply storage in base cabinets to complete the functionality of a clean working space.
A sink adds to the beauty and the function of a small sized laundry room. The sink in your laundry room will likely be used for everything from filling buckets to cutting fresh flowers, so be sure it’s deep and wide. It is also important for the faucet to have a fairly large arc, again enhancing the depth of the sink area. And last but not least, when hand washing delicates, it is practical to have a hanging rod above the sink for drip drying.
