Laundry Room Makeover Part 6: The REVEAL!!!

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The laundry room is finally done! After about four months of work… procrastination… and more work.

It all started with shits and giggles when my Cali Friend, Michelle, came to town to help me demo!!!

I sketched out a plan that I thought I’d like, then drew it directly on the walls so I could see the scale in the space.

Then I described what I wanted to ChatGPT and had it generate a realistic image for me. Pretty good right?!

Once everything was demoed, I started building a base for the cabinets to sit on.

I built and installed all of the cabinets, using red oak plywood stained in the color Spice Brown by DuraSeal.

I also tiled the backsplash and built my own solid red oak cabinet doors. The doors were definitely the hardest part.

Now I’m going to take you back to when we first moved into this house. The MDF cabinets were originally a cherry wood color, but I painted them black because that was NOT my style. I also added wood shelving and removed the wire and MDF shelves. Then we demoed everything! Without further ado, this is where we are today. I couldn’t be happier with how this laundry room turned out. Here is the view from the kitchen. We did end up removing the door separating the laundry room and the kitchen several years ago, it was just always in the way!

The view from the garage.

And a few more before and afters because I’m a little obsessed! I can’t believe I transformed this space!

Now with the laundry room door being removed, we have a beautiful view of the laundry room! It’s no longer just a utility room that was an eye sore!

The reason I needed the tall cabinet as deep as it is, is to store my Tineco vacuum and mop. They both sit on charging bases and I have no other good spot in my house to store them, they were in my hallway before.

The lower cabinet next to that is a long drawer that holds our laundry detergent and cleaning supplies. Things like that. We also have our battery organizer in there, if you don’t have one, that thing is AMAZING!!

The drawer above that has some miscellaneous things, and I made a divider in the front section for our keys.

I can’t reach the upper sections very well, so I don’t put anything up there that we use often…or that I use often. Tyler is 6’4 and can reach those areas just fine! I even made a drying rack for the left wall.

Do you think Chatty did a good job of bringing my vision to life compared to what I created?

I made the countertop to where it had a hatch because our LG washer/dryer combo has it’s lint trap at the top.

Now for my thoughts on the LG washer/dryer combo after using it for almost a year now. We love it! There are some downsides, but for us, the pros still outweigh the cons.

Cons:

• The time it takes to run a full load can be long. A medium load can take around three hours to wash and dry, and larger loads or towels can take even longer since they’re thicker.
• Sometimes, if the machine senses the load isn’t completely dry, it will add an extra hour or so of dry time, even if the clothes already feel dry. Especially if the lint isn’t all cleaned out, it can’t dry as well.
• You need to clean the lint trap every time and wipe lint off the door seal each cycle.
• Some people claim it doesn’t get clothes as clean, but that hasn’t been our experience at all.
• If it ever goes out, you have to replace the entire unit instead of just a washer or a dryer.
• The cost of a washer/dryer combo is about the same as buying both a washer and dryer.
• If you have a large family and do a lot of laundry at once or all in one day, this might not be the best option. You’d likely need to switch to doing laundry more frequently instead.

Pros:

• You load it once, and if you forget about it, your clothes aren’t just sitting in a wet washer getting mildewy.
• There’s no transferring laundry from washer to dryer.
• You can start a load before bed or before work and have it completely finished when you get back.
• You can wash only or dry only, and it also has a perm press option and many other features.
• You add your laundry detergent in bulk, and the machine automatically dispenses it for each load.
• It holds a lot of detergent, so you only have to refill it every 2–3 weeks (or longer for us).
• It uses less laundry detergent overall.
• It’s more eco-friendly and uses less water.
• It takes up less space than a separate washer and dryer, which frees up room for more storage. Especially when you have such a small laundry room like we do.

Next up, a few kitchen updates. I’ll be adding drawers to some of my lower cabinets and I’m going to show you have too!