laundry room

Laundry Room

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It has been a work in progress for a while… but my laundry room is finally finished receiving its makeover! (Until we tile the floor..?!) When we bought the house in March 2014, this room only had a sink, a shelf, and a dryer. That’s not even close to enough storage. Updating this room was one of my TOP priorities. It was the first room we painted, and one of the first to receive attention from my handy father too. Dad helped us install a mud room wall, a new vanity and sink, and cabinets over the washer and dryer. It’s a completely different space from a year ago!

Before: Laundry - Before

After we moved in, to no one’s surprise, this room needed serious help. It was an absolute mess and it drove me nuts. The picture is embarrassing.

Laundry Room - help!

Here are my amazing workers (my dad and my husband) getting ready to install the cabinets. Thanks guys!

Laundry Room - in progress

After the updates:

Laundry Room - After

It’s just beautiful!

Laundry Room - in progress 2The cabinets over the washer and dryer and the sink base/vanity are from IKEA. We wanted a deep utility sink instead of a kitchen sink though, so we decided to buy the sink somewhere else. The problem with this is that the IKEA pieces are in European sizes, not US sizes… so we had a hard time finding an easy solution for the counter top and sink. We ended up buying a new drop in utility sink and buying a used piece of counter top from our local Habitat Re-Store, cutting it to size and painting it blue. I wanted a wild color there… and I LOVE it!

In the new sink cabinet base we also have a hidden kitty litter box. It’s amazing. Check out my post on that project here!

The drying rack is also from IKEA, but Matt modified it. I hang dry a LOT of clothes, and the standard rack off the shelf wasn’t large enough… so we bought two and Matt took them apart and combined them to make one long rack with more rods. It’s perfect and awesome. We were careful to hang it high enough over the sink that we can still easily access the sink while clothes are hanging.

LaundryDryingRack

The mud room wall also has pieces from IKEA. They seriously know how to utilize space! Our wall consists of:

  • 2 IKEA “Hemnes” bookcases
  • 2 IKEA shelves
  • 1 IKEA “Hemnes” bench
  • Bead board
  • 1 Hook Rail

The new mud room wall is beyond awesome. I am so pleased with how it turned out! I had searched pinterest for days before deciding what I wanted… and I’m so happy with my solution.

Laundry Room Mud Wall - AfterThe adjustable IKEA shelves allow us to store all kinds of strange sized shoes, from tall boots, to flip flops! I also selected a few different baskets to keep things interesting. The baskets are from Target and Crate & Barrel. Matt really likes the ones with the chalkboard!

In the baskets we are hiding things like:

  • Helmets and cycling accessories
  • Hats and gloves
  • Umbrellas
  • Sunglasses

Here are some fun side-by-side before & after pictures:

LaundryRoom2LaundryRoom1LaundryRoom3

It may have taken a while to get this room put together, but it was worth the wait. It’s just what I wanted! :-)

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LaundryRoomPin

 

What litter boxes?

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One of my dreams come true at our new house is hidden kitty litter boxes! I love my adorable kitties, but no one loves their litter boxes. So a goal in our new house was to hide their boxes somehow to make them not so ugly and annoying for ourselves and guests, but available and convenient for the cats.

Here are my cats:

Kiki

Kiki

Theo

Theo

 

And here are before pictures of their not-so-adorable litter boxes:

 

Laundry room. Litter box in front of utility sink = super annoying.

Laundry room. Litter box in front of utility sink = super annoying.

 

Powder Room -- When the cat box was here in the corner, we kept Theo's food and water by the sink. It was so annoying and ugly.

Powder Room. When the litter box was here in the corner, we kept Theo’s food and water by the sink. It was so annoying and ugly.

I couldn’t wait to get these suckers out of the way and hidden. Although, now that I say that, it seems that I’m all about hiding things at my house..! (Did you see my post, “Hide the TV“?) But I’m not — I don’t hide everything at my house! Seriously though, all of our spaces have things we need for certain functions, but that doesn’t mean we always want to look at them. So I try to make spaces beautiful while accommodating function.

Back to the litter boxes. I looked at some ideas on pinterest for hiding litter boxes and decided that the best way to hide litter boxes in our house was to store the litter boxes inside the vanities in the bathroom and laundry room (each kitty has their own space because of food allergies and medications) and then cut holes through the sides of the vanities to allow the cats to pass through.

Matt was adorable about this, “It will be dark in there. Maybe I should put some small LEDs inside the vanity so that they can see?” He’s so cute. :-) I reminded Matt that they go potty in the dark half the time anyway, and reassured him it would be fine! (And it has been!)

We did this project while my parents were visiting, because my Dad is super awesome and handy! We were also installing a new vanity in the laundry room, as well as new cabinets, and we definitely needed his help. Thanks, Dad!

Both of the vanities needed to have double doors to allow the boxes to be moved in and out for placement and cleaning. In the powder room, the vanity that we had consisted of drawers and a single door. This was not going to work. We headed over to the Habitat Re-Store and bought some new vanity doors… then the guys removed the existing drawers & door, cut away the extra pieces framing them, and installed the “new” doors. Perfect! (While they were at it, I also had the guys install a new counter-top and sink! Away with the gray! The new white one looks so nice!)

Powder Room Vanity

In the laundry room, we were installing a brand new vanity, so we just picked one out that had double doors. Easy! :-) (Also, I mentioned that the laundry room received a big update with cabinets at the same time… a post on that project will happen sometime soonish! Stay tuned!)

Due to the plumbing, their existing litter boxes wouldn’t fit, so I headed to the store and found some pieces that would work. I ended up with large plastic totes that we cut some pieces out of to accommodate the plumbing, as well as a cut out to line up with the hole in the side of the vanity so the cats can go in and out! Then I put a smaller plastic basin inside each tote that is actually the litter box. The larger tote protects the interior of the vanity from the kitty and box. I can also pull the whole thing out to clean it. Here is one of the totes with the litter box inside it.

new cat box

Finally, the sides of the vanity were cut to match the placement of the totes/boxes inside, and we were finished.  We showed the cats their new bathrooms and we’ve all been living happily ever after! The cats don’t seem to mind going into the vanities and I LOVE not having to look at the litter boxes all of the time! Hurray!

Here are the updated vanities and their litter boxes hiding inside:

Powder Room Vanity 2

Powder Room – Theo’s Room

 

Laundry Room - Kiki's Room

Laundry Room – Kiki’s Room… but that’s Theo in the picture. He followed me around while I took these pictures!