While the house addition was under construction, I enjoyed showing you photos of where the laundry closet would eventually be. I always made Scott stand in the "doorway" so we could all imagine how this space suspended in air would be transformed. Remember these progress shots from August, 2012?
The point of re-sharing these photos is not just to walk down memory lane (though it is fun to look back) but rather to lament the fact that it took all this time for us to finally address finishing the laundry closet! After all the waiting, it was a Saturday project that only took a few hours, a few dollars, and a little oilcloth. Check it out:
The laundry closet has been functioning just fine. We usually have a giant mound of dirty clothes on the floor, and we have to stand on our tippy-toes to reach the soap on top the dryer but all-in-all, it's been okay.
We tossed around several ideas about what we could use to create a structure that included a shelf, a rack to hold hangers, a table upon which to fold clothes, and storage space for laundry baskets. We finally settled on the idea of using a 36" wide chrome wire shelf (available at your local Target store.) We modified the packaged unit slightly by using only two of the five shelves in our final design. The other three shelves will be added to a unit in my auxiliary pantry to create more efficient storage for housewares. Sadly, the cool casters I bought (shown above) made the unit too wide for the space so they have been placed in storage for future tool shop use.
The shelving unit is just wide enough to make it impossible to build outside of the closet. Luckily, it came apart quickly and was easily constructed in place.
For the clothing rod, we wanted to utilize a heretofore unused adjustable chrome rod that came with the unit Scott bought for the master closet. One end of the rod was fitted with hardware to attach it to the wall while the other end held a bracket that could hang from a wire shelf. Since we didn't want to make this a permanent fixture, attaching it to the wall was not possible. We searched a few hardware stores for a matching bracket but came up short.
Lucky for me, my husband is super smart . . . just went down to the shop, found a piece of scrap metal, and manufactured the exact bracket we needed. He even found a stout little bolt to attach it to the rod's end.
The top shelf was positioned as high as possible and now makes a nifty spot for extra paper towels in addition to laundry soap and fabric softener. The rod is suspended from this shelf, allowing plenty of room for hanging clothes.
Ta Da!
A table top for folding clothes was created by covering a piece of leftover sub-floor with a piece of oil cloth leftover from my kitchen pantry project. Gravity holds the heavy board in place. Four matching laundry baskets fit perfectly on the floor. Looks pretty cute, right? Another fun little project is "done." Time to find something to do!
Stay Tuned for Our Next Adventure!
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