Howdy! Today I’m sharing the renovations we made to our laundry suite. We call this room the laundry suite because at almost 100 square feet, its proportion to our total square footage (1,273) is highly unusual. Most people with a house our size are lucky to have a laundry closet, much less an actual room that works as hard as ours. But let’s start with the what the laundry suite looked like when we bought our house.
It had a “walk-in” pantry (as seen on the right, above) and a cabinet with a *convenient* folding surface. On the opposite wall, there was a pass through to the kitchen and the exposed water heater.
Oh, and there was some missing drywall. Yup, we bought it like this. Also, can we talk about the cabinets above the windows and doorway? The previous owner was really after that extra storage. The laundry suite is at the back of our house and used to be accessible from the kitchen and the mudroom. Here is the original floor plan if you missed this post about our layout:
The laundry suite also originally had two windows, one facing the backyard and one on the side of the house. The pantry was on the back wall of the house and the water heater was in the corner where the laundry, kitchen and dining rooms meet. The first order of business was to remove everything from the room, there was nothing salvageable here. Well, actually, we did keep that cabinet and faux wood countertop in our garage for awhile.
We had to open the wall in between the kitchen and laundry (lets be real, it was already half open from the laundry side) to install new plumbing and electrical and here you can see through to the laundry suite. We entertained the idea of trying to incorporate this space into the kitchen but in the end we decided to keep it a separate room. You can see the two windows in the photo above, they weren’t the same height and they just made for a funky layout, so we decided to ditch the window along the back wall and only keep the window along the side of the house. This allowed us to gain a “galley” type area with counters/storage on two opposite walls.
Since the laundry suite was not a priority when we started our renovations (we needed a kitchen and bathroom people!) it became our makeshift kitchen/laundry/storage area. We had moved in at this point and were living here full time.
Remember when I said we did things out of order? We had all of our appliances and kitchen cabinets BEFORE we even had the electrical and plumbing done in the kitchen. So, we had our refrigerator running, the washer and dryer stacked and working, and we had our microwave/convection oven mounted in its correct cabinet AND it was hardwired to its dedicated outlet (since there was no drywall, we just ran the wiring through the studs to plug it in to the correct location). This was the “kitchen” we lived with for a while. Talk about a setup – it was Digiorno Pizza for months! That, or something grilled on our Weber out back. And that piece of plywood on top of the microwave oven, that was our “kitchen countertop.” We were young and wild, and it didn’t bother us one bit.
Eventually we reframed the kitchen/laundry wall to close in the opening from the kitchen to the laundry suite (this allowed us to install a pantry cabinet in the kitchen and gain a much better flow). When the laundry suite became its own room again we decided it would be nice to add a utility sink. We only have two other sinks in our house, located in the kitchen and the bathroom, which are generally being used for their specific duties, so it made sense to carve out a space for a third sink for soaking laundry, washing out paintbrushes, etc. But, we had already rebuilt the kitchen/laundry wall without installing any plumbing for the new sink. So, we had to build another “fake” wall about 6 inches in front of the “real” wall to accommodate the new plumbing.
It was a bummer to have to make the room smaller, but in the end, you don’t notice the half a foot that we lost to make room for the sink. Once we had all the plumbing and electrical installed, we drywalled, with the exception of the portion of the wall that sits behind the washer and dryer (which allows room for the plumbing, dryer vent, etc) .
We insulated the remaining walls and then drywalled the rest of the room.
I should also mention, early on we replaced the water heater with a new, larger one and at that time, we relocated the water heater to the opposite side of the room (and placed it on a pedestal, per code). So it now sits along the back wall of the house, where the laundry suite meets the mudroom.
Now for the fun stuff.
Andrew and I call this room our baby because we LITERALLY did everything. We laid the tile. Andrew built the cabinets, from scratch. I painstakingly painted said cabinets. We installed the backsplash. You name it, we did it. This room arguably made the largest transformation of any room in our house and for that, it’s my favorite. Yes, my laundry suite is my favorite room in the house. There I said it.
Back to the fun stuff. Next, we laid the floor tile. Its a neutral, linen look tile that I chose a herringbone pattern for (which Andrew was so thrilled about). First we laid out our pattern to adjust where the tiles would line up next to our cabinets and the doorway.
Then we started laying the tile at the back of the room and worked our way to the mudroom.
The two missing pieces were soon filled in and everything was grouted. Then the cabinetry was installed. We installed a cabinet around the water heater, with a drawer underneath.
Then a hanging space with a bench below and cubbies above.
And to complete that side of the room, we installed a refrigerator nook with wine storage and an upper cabinet.
On the opposite side of the room (starting at the window side) we installed a floor-to-ceiling cabinet (hello vacuum storage!) two upper cabinets above the washer/dryer and a base cabinet with the utility sink.
We chose to go with a concrete countertop above the washer and dryer because we were feeling adventurous at the time. Yup, you guessed it, Andrew made that too. He formed, poured and installed the concrete countertop with the help of a buddy.
After the concrete countertop and sink (we scored ours at the Austin Habitat for Humanity Restore for $40!) were installed, we added crown moulding to the room.
At last it was time to paint. I used Annie Sloan’s chalk paint in Duck Egg for this project. It did take a considerable amount of time since you have to paint the cabinets then also apply the wax finish but it has held up very well in the last 6 years. I painted all the cabinet box frames first, then painted the front and back of the doors. I let everything dry, then applied the clear wax to everything.
While we waited for the paint to dry on the cabinet doors, we added a white subway tile backsplash above the countertop and installed the faucet and soap dispenser for the sink.
To finish off the room, we added a shelf (made of wood and metal pipe fittings) above the sink and also used metal pipe fitting for our hanging bar above the bench.
And here she is, our baby, all finished and turned into the laundry suite she was always meant to be!
And just for comparison:
I hope you enjoyed the journey of the laundry suite transformation. And I hope I’ve convinced you that utility spaces can be functional and easy on the eyes. How’s your laundry space looking? Comment below or connect with me on instagram @elleandjaydesign.
