16 Laundry Room Ideas to Make the Most of Your Space
Doing laundry is a necessary chore that can be tedious and monotonous. Investing in a stylish and functional laundry room can go a long way in saving you time and making this chore a more enjoyable experience.
When you put intention into designing your laundry area, it can reflect your personal style and feel like a purposeful extension of your home. By personalizing your laundry space with some stylistic details and useful features, you can create a more efficient and inviting space.
The following laundry room ideas and upgrades can help you make this essential workspace beautiful and functional.
1. Supplement with a Utility Sink
Adding a laundry sink to your laundry room is a great way to utilize space and add more ways to take care of cleaning duties. Replacing your existing laundry sink may also be a needed upgrade. A large, deep sink—in stainless steel or another sturdy material—is ideal in a laundry room. Both a single basin or double basin sink are suitable for laundry room use, based on your preference.
Before buying, consider what you would use a laundry sink for, such as pre-soaking dirty clothes before the wash, hand washing clothing, cleaning your pups, or other cleaning tasks like mopping. Knowing the function you need will help you pick a sink to match.
For premiere style, a large farmhouse sink will make a statement and provide plenty of functionality as a laundry sink.
A plumber may be needed to provide access to water lines.
Cost: $ - $$ +
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate, may need a pro
2. Freshen Up Your Laundry Faucet
Any laundry sink needs a faucet to go with it. The best laundry and utility faucets will favor function over form and simplicity over complexity, but you don’t have to sacrifice style either. Utility faucets almost always have two handles, as do wall-mount faucets and bridge faucets. Any of these faucets work well with a laundry sink.
A goose-neck pull down faucet is a great option, though you may be able to control water temperature more precisely with a two-handle faucet.
Cost: $ - $$
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate, DIY Friendly
3. Fold in a Folding Area
What is a laundry room if it doesn’t have a space for you to fold your clothing once it’s dry? For a budget-friendly option, a foldaway surface or table could easily be stowed next to your appliances.
Cabinets with a countertop provide ample area for you to fold clothes. Durable and easy-to-clean surfaces like granite or engineered quartz are ideal. Butcher block is also popular and fits in with farmhouse-style laundry rooms.
With front-load machines, you can install a countertop or extended shelf on top of the machines to create a workable surface area.
Newer laundry cabinetry might feature a pullout surface for folding or added storage when you need it. (Almost like a pullout cutting board!)
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
4. Elevate with Hanging Space
Some clothes need to be hung or air-dried, so an area with a rod or rack is very useful in a laundry room. Add a rod between cabinets, between a cabinet and a wall, or mount racks straight to the wall. For added stability, screw a hanging rod or pull-down rod into the wall as opposed to a tension rod. This makes it easy to hang clothes or to have a space to lay the clothes out to dry.
Newer designs for clothing hanging spaces include wall-mounted or under cabinet pull-out racks for easy access when needed and stowed away when not in use.
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
5. Upgrade (or Install) Laundry Cabinets and Cabinet Organization
One way to upgrade your laundry room would be to replace, reface, paint, or stain your existing cabinets, or add new cabinetry altogether.
The open space above your laundry machines is a great place to add cabinets or open shelves to store your laundry and cleaning supplies. For visual intrigue and style, alternate between closed cabinets, glass cabinets, or open shelving.
Closed cabinets hide away all your cleaning supplies and present a streamlined profile since those supplies might look cluttered out in the open.
Since glass cabinets and open shelving show off what’s inside, Vevano Home designers recommend using stylish containers and other decor to give your laundry room a lovely, clean, and organized appearance. Open shelves or doorless cabinets can also be repurposed for hamper nooks for sorting clothes.
Since open shelving can get messy quickly, especially in a laundry room, use a set of coordinating containers, trays, baskets, or glass/transparent jars to create an organized and stylish display that provides what you need at arm’s reach.
If you have a large laundry room space, you might consider an island cabinet for added storage and workable counter space.
When it comes to organizing, keep what you most use upfront and close to your working areas and appliances. Store back stock or surplus in the back of cabinets.
Other cabinet organizers, such as pullout cabinets, Hamper pull-outs and shelves, will add useful functionality to cabinet storage as well.
Adding New Laundry Cabinets
Cost: $$ +
Difficulty: Moderate, may need a pro
Refacing or Painting Existing Cabinets
Cost: $ +
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate, DIY Friendly
6. Linen Closet
7. Stack Your Machines
If you have a front load washer and dryer set, consider stacking your machines on top of each other to use the vertical space. This creates more room for accessible working areas for cabinets, shelving nooks, a countertop, additional storage, or even space for a small doggy shower, depending on what you most need with your laundry space.
The important thing is that the machines are similar if not the same in size and that there are at least a couple of inches of breathing room around them for proper ventilation. Laundry machine stacking kits are also available to ensure they stay stacked. Hiring a plumber or electrician for water and electric hookups will affect the cost. You will need a couple strong individuals to stack machines safely.
Cost: $ +
Difficulty: Easy (with strong people helping!)
8. Convert a Closet
Don’t have a laundry room? Consider repurposing a closet into housing your washing machines. This may require a plumber to align the proper water and gas hookups to use the closet of your choice, unless a closet has already been configured with them. With a closet door, you can easily conceal your laundry workzone.
Cost: $$ +
Difficulty: Moderate +
9. Repurpose Your Walls
Use all the available space on the walls, even the vertical space around your washing machines, to make the most of your laundry area. Adding hooks to hold clothes, hangers, or tools to reduce clutter are quick ways to add functionality to your walls.
Slimform wall-mount hanging racks are also available to pull out and fold back up when not in use. Other wall-mount features will also maximize space, such as a wall-mount laundry sink since they don’t require additional cabinetry for installation. Plus, many wall-mounted laundry sinks come with open space underneath, which you could use to store cleaning supplies or a hamper.
A door can also be repurposed as a mount for hooks, rods, or hanging organizers to optimize the space. A hanger for an ironing board is a popular door holder.
10. Flooring For Function & Style
Ceramic or porcelain tile work great as laundry room flooring; they are both waterproof and easy to clean. Luxury vinyl tile can work since it’s water resistant, but moisture can sometimes sneak beneath the planks, so use care or install vinyl sheets instead.
Non-porous stone also works well as a laundry room floor because it is both casual and durable, though it comes with a higher price tag. If it’s porous stone, then make sure it’s sealed regularly to resist moisture.
The kinds of flooring to avoid in a laundry room or area include carpet, laminate, or hardwood as they can trap moisture, causing mold and other damage.
Cost: $$-$$$
Difficulty: Moderate, may need a pro
11. Lighting Up Your Laundry
Adding stylish light fixtures is also a way to let your personality shine while also illuminating the places that need it, such as above the utility sink or under the cabinets. Using warm-toned LED lights will make the space more welcoming as well.
Lighting can be layered for both function and style. Under cabinet light fixtures paired with pendant lighting are useful and provide a personalized look.
Cost: $ - $$
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
12. Replace Cabinet Hardware
Changing up the hardware on your cabinets—the knobs, handles, and pulls—is a simple and DIY-friendly way to upgrade your laundry room to give it a cohesive look. This is where you can emphasize your chosen aesthetic or update the style with a small change.
For intentional decor, match your hardware with your rods, hanging hooks, knobs, and even your hangers to tie the room together with small items with similar finishes.
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
13. Change the Walls, Transform the Room
Painting a wall or a whole room can truly transform it. A solid color throughout will make the space feel bigger, especially with white, creams, or pastel colors. Wallpaper has also become popular in laundry rooms to add color and beauty to a traditionally utilitarian space.
Adding wall paneling like beadboard and molding can add a touch of sophistication as well.
Another way to change up the walls is to add a backsplash behind the laundry sink or near the appliances. Backsplash acts as water protection as well as a beautiful way to add detail to your laundry room design.
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
14. Adding Art & Decor
To create a more welcoming, cozy, and enjoyable laundry room, add coordinating artwork, flowers and plant life, or rugs that match your chosen aesthetic. These can be further showcased on open shelves or walls so you have something nice to look at or something soft underfoot.
Cost: $ +
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
15. Curtains for Cover
A trending way to add personality and conceal supplies or laundry machines is adding a curtain or skirt around the various sections or cabinets. Curtains also create a homey look on your windows as well if your laundry room has them.
Cost: $ +
Difficulty: Easy, DIY Friendly
16. Uplevel Your Laundry Room With a Designer
If you need assistance in remodeling your laundry room, contact our expert interior designers. They can help you narrow down your style, choose the right products to fit your space, and design a cohesive laundry room full of functional features.