People constantly complaint about their laundry room. Some say that theirs are way too small, while others don’t even have space for putting their washing machine. In both cases, one way out will be using garage space. You might doubt this idea, but there are ways to make it work.
CLEANING UP
Be honest with yourself; garage is not the cleanest space to be around. There will be dust from your car tire, and probably spider web on the ceiling. If you want to use garage as laundry room, then get it cleaned. You don’t want to accidentally drop your freshly laundry sheets and redo the process all over.
Having dust around is not good for the washing machines as well. When you clean all the dust, probably you should also sort things out. When you walk several steps and bump into things, then some of them must be thrown out. There will be more things to add in your laundry room, so better make the space available.
PLANNING THINGS
Next step you need to do is organizing things. How big the space you are willing to use for laundry room? Is it only one corner of the room? Or is it just one side of the wall? Depending on your answer, you will find whether stacking horizontally or vertically is better. In most cases, people prefer to stack things vertically.
You can’t miss the plumbing and wiring as well. Make sure the water could run well. If needed, you could install insulation to prevent water freezing. It won’t be nice to work with frozen water during winter and handle the flood when it thaws. If you are not familiar with plumbing and wiring work, you can always call for professional’s help.
COMPLEMENTING ROOM
It is true that you use garage for your laundry room. Does it sound like legit excuse to let it dark and dull? Lighten up the atmosphere a little bit. You will appreciate to work on clear and clean space rather than shadowy area. Easiest plan is painting them white or with any bright color to your taste. You don’t have to do the whole garage. The laundry corner is enough.
Lighting is also important in laundry room. Again, you could focus on the laundry corner only. Install additional bulbs to help you navigate things better. There will be no mixing detergent and bleaching agent.
Another thing to consider is shelves. Since you only have limited space for laundry room, shelves help to store a lot of things at once. Put detergent and any other cleaning products on the top shelves. Then use the remaining space for folding station. If you don’t have space for pull up iron board, you could actually install it just on top of washing machine. You only need to retract it and fold it back after use.
Some garages have low ceiling. In this case, you cannot have the luxury of tall shelves. Don’t be discourage though. You could use the area behind the door to keep the cleaning products. The only upside down will be purchasing smaller size available.
INSTALLING MORE HELPFUL ITEMS
The things mentioned above are just the basic of laundry room. You could do a lot more in the laundry room, only if you know how to do it effortlessly.
1. Detergent Dispenser
Working with washing machine, many people use the liquid detergent instead of the powder one. A clumsy mistake will make the floor slippery. Is there any way to get liquid detergent without lifting the bottle? Built a dispenser! Moreover, you could save more money by buying large amount of it at once.
First option will be using actual dispenser to use. Fill in your detergent into the gallon. Install the gallon to dispenser or you could use the tap. Provide the measuring cup a hanging place. Next time you need to do laundry, you simply need to pull up the tap. If you don’t have any gallon, then just install a tap on the bottle lid and lay the bottle vertically. It also works!
2. Hanger Holder
Some of you just don’t have the time for ironing. When the laundry is done, you usually pile them up in one basket and actually iron it before use. Now there is a trick to make your life much easier. Install a hanger holder in your laundry room. The ideal place would be on the opposite side of the washing machine.
Now you have the place to hang your clean laundry. It will minimize wrinkles on your shirts and jackets. You could use steam iron to make them ready to wear.
3. Half Wall
Not all of you love to expose laundry room. Garage is an open space, so you might have two open sides. Do you want to have a little bit more secrecy? Then put on portable half wall. It could be found in any house store. There are plenty designs to choose, so you don’t have to worry about mix and match.
Installing half wall will also filter the dust and air from the outside. If you constantly going in and out of the house, then half wall is almost a must. Otherwise, your clean laundry might have some dust on it.
4. Laundry Chute
Now that you have the laundry room is ready, your next job is telling house members to separate their laundry. It is not an easy task, but you still need to do it. Piling up stained clothes on dirty white clothes will keep you busy later. Fortunately, you could make a laundry chute to solve this problem.
The system of laundry chute is similar to recycling dustbin. You put a mark on which basket to put which clothes. There is more to it. If you have to go up and down the stairs to get to laundry room, just create a passage to laundry room. It will save your time and effort. Just make sure that your basket is always ready and you do laundry on scheduled time.
Great idea!