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Creating A Multi-Functional Laundry Room

Creating A Multi-Functional Laundry Room

Do you just use your laundry room for washing and drying? Make more out of the same space by creating a multi-functional laundry room.

Even in smaller spaces, your laundry room can serve more than one purpose. That purpose usually depends on your unique needs.

If you have extra space, you could even use the room for four or five different purposes. The sky’s the limit, so get creative.

Wrapping Area

Have some extra space beside your washer or dryer? Turn it into a wrapping area. A popular addition to a multi-functional laundry room is storing wrapping supplies along with having an area to actually wrap gifts. A slide out bin and small cabinet beside your washer or dryer works well for storing rolls of wrapping paper, bows, tape, scissors, boxes and more.

If you already have a space for folder clothes, you can use that same space to spread out wrapping supplies to make quick work of birthday, Christmas and other special gifts.

Add A Mudroom

One of the most common extra functions of a laundry room is creating a mudroom. Every home can benefit from having a mudroom, even if it’s just a place to store muddy shoes while they dry and a towel to dry the dog off on a rainy day. This tends to work best when your laundry room is near an outside door. You can also add a faucet to rinse things off, a place to hang coats and a bench to quickly change shoes. You can even add multi-level cabinets to make the most of the space.

Pet Area

Want to keep your pet contained while you’re away for the day? A multi-functional laundry room works great to keep your pet and furniture safe while you’re gone to work or out for the evening. Add a divider wall to create a dedicated area with a pet bed, food and water, toys and anything else your pet needs. For cats, you might even add a shelf near a window for them to look out. For smaller dogs, you can add a see-through pet door, but keep it locked when you’re not at home.

Add a row of cabinets to store pet food and supplies. If your pet tends to get dirty when going outside, add a bathing area. A simple dip in the floor with a drain works well.

Crafting Place

Finding a quiet place to craft isn’t always easy. The soothing sounds of a washer or dryer running helps you shut out the rest of the world. Add a table that folds down from a wall or use a row of lower cabinets so you can use the countertop for crafting. Make sure you add cabinets or shelves to hold and organize all your crafting supplies. Since a laundry room typically has a tile or hardwood floor, this also makes cleaning up glitter, paint and other crafting uh-ohs up much easier.

Extra Bathroom

Want a second bathroom? If you have the space, turn your multi-functional laundry room into a smaller bathroom. Adding a shower, toilet and sink allows you to have a nice guest bathroom or just extra bathroom for busier households. Your washer and dryer can go on either side of the bathroom sink. Add upper cabinets to store towels or have bins for dirty and clean laundry. Some people even hide their washer and dryer in the bathroom without anyone noticing it.

Home Office Space

If you’re trying to find somewhere quiet to work from home, why not try the laundry room? As unconventional as it sounds, a laundry room actually works out well. Add a counter and some cabinets to create a makeshift desk. All you need is a small open area between cabinets to slide your chair in. You can even have shelves or upper cabinets for extra storage. Plus, if you want to stay on top of laundry, everything’s in one room.

There are so many different uses for laundry rooms. Go ahead and plan out a multi-functional laundry room of your own.

Got your plans all ready? Contact Edgewood Cabinetry today to see how we can help customize storage and cabinets for your laundry room needs.

Image: ErikaWittlieb

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Designing The Perfect Laundry Room

Designing The Perfect Laundry Room

Does doing laundry make you an expert at procrastination? All you need is the perfect laundry room to turn this boring task into something you might actually enjoy.

The right space and organization makes all the difference. Suddenly, it’s easier to move around. Things like folding and ironing are simpler.

Instead of just stuffing your washer and dryer into a corner, design a space specifically for them. Turn it into a place you won’t mind using.

Choose The Right Appliances

The first step is to consider the appliances you’ll use. For instance, if you prefer front loading washers and dryers, you can utilize the space directly above them to fold clothes or set your laundry basket. Or, if you have a smaller space, a stacked set helps you save space so you have more room for cabinets and a counter.

If you like top loaders, not a problem. You can easily add a workspace around them instead of over them. Or, create a fold out station to save even more space.

When designing your perfect laundry room, leave extra space around your appliances. You may buy something slightly larger later and you don’t want to have remodel everything just to make your washer and dryer fit.

Even if you have smaller spaces, you can still create a great laundry room. But, by picking the right appliances for the space, you’ll be better able to customize the smaller space to get the most out of it.

Consider Adding A Sink

One thing many people don’t consider is the convenience of having a sink in the laundry room. More and more items are hand-wash only or you need to rinse out a stain before throwing an item into the wash. If you have the space, consider adding a sink. It’s a simple addition that’ll you use far more often than you think.

Created A Dedicated Workspace

Nothing’s more frustrating than having to pull everything out, go into another room and then try to sort it all. This is especially true if you have items you can’t dry, but have to find places to hang throughout your house.

Create a dedicated workspace around your appliances. The perfect laundry room includes at the very least a drying rack and counterspace for working with everything. Imagine having ample room to lay out your clothes for folding and ironing. You can also easily see which socks don’t have matches just yet.

Add Cabinets For Storage

The perfect laundry room isn’t complete with custom cabinets. Once you have a worksplace, you don’t want it cluttered with detergent bottles, dryer sheets and other items. Instead, store these in cabinets. Plus, if you have kids, it’s easy to child-proof the cabinet doors to keep your little ones safer. You can easily hide your iron and ironing board inside a cabinet to keep it out of the way, too.

Don’t forget that some appliances also come with a storage pedestal. Take full advantage of this too. These are ideal for storing smaller items, giving you more room in your cabinets.

Create A Pickup Station

If you’re doing laundry for more than just you, add a small pick up station. Instead of delivering clothes to everybody, add a cabinet or cubicle area with a basket for each person. As you sort laundry, sort it by person. When you’re done, they can come by to pick up their individual basket. They can also drop off their dirty laundry in a separate basket or hamper so you don’t have to do any extra work.

Design A Multi-Purpose Laundry Room

Most of the time, you think of a laundry room as just a room for washing and drying clothes, but it can be so much more. Free up room in your kitchen and bathroom by storing cleaning supplies in your laundry room. Extra paper towels easily fit above your washer or dryer. There is so much storage space available that it can also work like a mud room if it’s near your back door.

Make use of all the space available. Just leave plenty of room to walk around easily. If you’re not sure where to start, The Spruce lists 50 incredible ideas to inspire you.

Ready to design the perfect laundry room for you? See how we can help you create the laundry room of your dreams.

Image: stevepb

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Edgewood Cabinetry custom cabinets

Getting the Most Use Out of Your Laundry Room

Cleaning and organizing the main areas of the house is a primary concern in most homes. The laundry room rarely gets the attention it needs. It often is a dumping ground for clothing and other items resulting in persistent clutter. However, there will come a time when the clutter will start to interfere with the function of the laundry room, and you will be forced to organize it. Planning how to use all the space in the room will help keep it uncluttered in the future. Here are a few ideas for custom cabinets and shelves that will make use of every inch of space in the laundry and keep it organized.

Laundry Rooms Are Meant For More Than JUST Cleaning Your Clothes

Edgewood Cabinetry custom cabinetsWall Space: Walls are the underrated space-saver. In a small space, every square inch is luxury real estate, and walls are unutilized land. Put shelves above the washer and dryer, the door, the standing sink, or any unused corner. If you have space, make those shelves floor-to-ceiling. Use these shelves for storing laundry and cleaning supplies.

Back of Door: If the laundry has a door, use it for storage. There are numerous door organizers on the market. There are metal shelves that use most of the door. There are clear plastic pocket organizers. Add hooks to hang clothes or towels. Use part of the door or all of it. It’s an excellent place for storage.

Baskets and Storage Cubes: Once you have shelving, use baskets or storage cubes to organize supplies. Label the containers, so you and others know what’s in them and where to return items when used.

Utilize All of Your Home’s Space

How To Design The Ultimate Large Appliances StorageDrying Rack: With today’s fabrics, many cannot be thrown in the dryer. So a drying rack is needed. Any laundry room can have a drying rack. If the laundry room is small, hang the drying rack from the ceiling or have one that folds flat to the wall when not in use.

Cabinets: If there are cabinets in the laundry room or if you add them, use all the space in the cupboard. The efficient way to do that is to add wire drawers that pull out — no more lost supplies in the back corner of the cabinet.

Pedestal Drawers: Front-loading washers and dryers can often be placed on pedestals for more effortless loading and unloading. Be sure to use the drawers in these pedestals for storage. Extra laundry supplies or even a supply of paper towels or toilet paper can be placed here.

Folding Station: If you don’t have a countertop place to fold clothes, try a folding station that hangs on the wall. This way, you can use it when folding but then collapse it against the wall when not in use.

Standing Sink: A shelf added between the legs of a standing sink can be useful for storing cleaning supplies. Make this dead space useful.

So get in there and start decluttering and organizing. You’ll be glad you did, and when done right, you will never have to do it again.

Need some custom cabinets for organizing? Contact Edgewood Cabinetry. We can turn your laundry room into storage heaven. Call 919-339-7300.

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Secret Laundry Room

How To Create A Secret Laundry Room In Your Bathroom

When you’re short on space or just don’t want a dedicated laundry room, it might not always be easy to find the right place for your washer and dryer.

The good news is you already have the perfect room for them – the bathroom. Since laundry rooms typically need to be placed near a kitchen or bathroom, why not create a secret laundry room right in your bathroom?

Plus, it’s ideal since your dirty laundry is usually tossed in a hamper in or near the bathroom. This means less work to take your dirty laundry to your washer.

Transform A Closet

If you have a closet in your bathroom that’s wide enough for your washer and dryer, transform the closet into a secret laundry room. Yes, you’ll have to give up some storage space, but you could always add some vertical storage elsewhere in your bathroom to make up for it.

If the closet is tall enough, consider adding a rollout shelf between the two machines. Use it to sort clothes, fold clothes and even spot clean those really set in stains.

Of course, you still need a place to store your laundry supplies. If your machines set in far enough into the closet, add baskets to the inside of the door to store detergent, fabric softener, color catchers and any other supplies you need. You can also just store all this inside any bathroom cabinet as well.

Build Special Cabinets

If you don’t have a closet handy, don’t worry. Have custom bathroom cabinets built that match the rest of your bathroom, instead. To anyone who walks in, they just look like standard cabinets. What visitors won’t know is they’re hiding a secret laundry room.

In fact, you can create deeper cabinets that open up into their own mini-room. This allows room for shelves to store laundry supplies. You could even add a rack at the door for items that have to hang to dry versus using the dryer.

Create A Tiny Laundry Room

If you have ample space in your bathroom, actually create a secret laundry room using a divider wall. However, instead of an actual wall, use doors that look like your bathroom cabinet doors. They’ll look like floor-to-ceiling cabinets, but when you open them, they lead into a full room.

Add cabinets above or to the sides of your washer and dryer for extra storage. This is the perfect scenario if you also need to add a rack to hang clothes. To make the most of this, you may want to have cabinets or shelves around the top of the walls and add a rack underneath.

Give Up Cabinet Space

Low on space? Not a problem. You can still create a secret laundry room, but you’ll have to give up some of your cabinet space. If you have cabinets to the sides of your sink, use those for your washer and dryer. Think of it in the same way you add a dishwasher to your kitchen.

Yes, you’ll have to compromise on storage space, but you won’t have to create a dedicated laundry room. Adding tall, thin cabinets is a great way to add some extra storage without taking up much space.

Have A Laundry Island

For large bathrooms, you have quite a few options to create a secret laundry room. One of the more innovative solutions is a laundry island. It works the same way as a kitchen island. You have custom cabinets built that fit in an island in your bathroom. These just so happen to perfectly fit your washer and dryer.

You can add drawers or a cabinet with rollout shelves to the side of the washer and dryer to store all your laundry supplies. You may want to add a tall cabinet somewhere in your bathroom to hang clothes and store your hamper. This solution looks elegant and gives you extra counter space to get ready in the mornings or for a night out.

If you’re not sure how all of these ideas actually look or want to see how they might fit into your bathroom, check out how others have created secret laundry rooms on Pinterest. Bob Vila also has great tips for adding a laundry room to your bathroom and other rooms.

Ready to renovate your bathroom to create a hidden laundry room? Contact us today to see how we can help create custom cabinets to fit your machines.

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Multi-Level Cabinets Create Valuable Mudroom Storage

Especially for families with children, the mudroom can be almost as important as the kitchen or bathroom for getting everyone ready and out the door in the morning.  They’re also the perfect space for catching muddy shoes and sports equipment before they make it into the house and onto your carpet or tile.
Creating the perfect mudroom is a cinch with multi-level cabinets from Edgewood Cabinetry.  You can carry your existing kitchen cabinets through to the mudroom, or choose a complementary stain of a more durable material.  Multi-level cabinets give you the ability to store coats, shoes, and sports stuff down low where your kids can reach them, while keeping breakable or less kid-friendly items up high and out of reach.
Space providing, Edgewood Cabinetry can also install one of the most important elements of any great mudroom: a bench.  Especially for younger children, a bench to sit on while tying shoes and putting on jackets is a must-have, and we can build one that matches seamlessly with your cabinetry, giving your room a custom, high-end look.  There’s no need to sacrifice style in a room that’s all about function.
And if your mudroom space doubles as a laundry area, we can install custom multi-level cabinets to accommodate your washing machine and dryer, as well as plenty of space for storing your detergent and other supplies.
There’s really no limit to what we can do to maximize the organizational potential in your space.  Contact us to see samples of our previous mudroom designs, and to find inspiration for your own!

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