Tag Archives: laundry room

Decorating the Laundry Room

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There are a few rooms in our home that we don’t really think about decorating. Hallways and powder rooms are two of them, but perhaps the most neglected room in our homes is the laundry room.  Despite spending hours every week in the laundry room, we rarely think to decorate this room. Maybe if we added some design style to the laundry room it might make doing laundry a little bit more enjoyable! Maybe? Probably not, but having a pretty laundry room might help us dread the task a little less.

If you have a laundry room on the second floor or main floor of your home, you probably already have finished flooring in the room. Basement laundry rooms tend to have cement floors. Adding laminate or tile to a basement laundry room floor would make the space feel more like a finished room.

Painting the walls of the laundry room a happy color you love could improve your mood when you are in the room.  This is especially true for basement laundry rooms. Cabinets can be painted or replaced with more stylish cabinet doors.  Open shelves can be put up to store laundry supplies in pretty glass jars.  A folding drawer or cabinet makes drying sweaters neater and keeps the room less cluttered.

Adding a chandelier or other fun hanging light can give an extra bit of style to the utilitarian room. If your laundry room has a window, put up decorative window treatments like cafe curtains or roman shades.

Laundry Room Spring Cleaning Hacks

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Laundry rooms are incredibly functional and vital rooms in our homes. Some people do not have the privilege of washing their own clothes in the comfort of their own homes, so this feature can be a blessing that we overlook all the time. In fact, these rooms can quickly become second thoughts and become the home of many cleaning products and other miscellaneous household utilities. However, this room is such a privilege and designed for functionality! Sometimes a once extremely-functional room can become a cluttered mess of mayhem. That is why this spring is the perfect time to reorganize and clean your laundry room to return it to its functional state. Since there is nothing worse than struggling to maneuver in an already small space, here are some great tools and tactics to help make your laundry room clean and organized this spring:

Shelf Organization

The beginning of any cleaning project should be your organizational step. Too often, the laundry room holds miscellaneous household belongings. Start by sorting out everything in your drawers and cabinets. Create specific drawers and cabinets to keep organized belongings. Try to eliminate too many duplicate products like double bottles of bleach or three pairs of scissors. These tactics can make your cabinets and drawers look much more organized.

Countertop Space

Next, if you have the space already or can add it, try to organize your countertop space. This step is great for folding or sorting out clothes. In fact, a clean countertop is ideal for every time you are not currently in the process of sorting laundry. Try to keep this in mind as you clean your laundry room as well.

Hanging Areas

Lastly, if you do not have it already, create a drying/hanging area. This step can be a simple investment that allows clothes to dry. You can keep spare hangers and sort your clothes more thoroughly with a hanging rack. You can also install a hanging area on the back of your door to the room. This is a great hidden storage area for brooms, mops, and even ironing boards.

Cleaning your laundry room is a great spring project to tackle. Stop letting it continue to become the melting pot of miscellaneous goods in your home. Instead, opt for a clean laundry room that is more functional. Remember, this room thrives off of making your life easier, so allow it to do so.

Make the Most of your Laundry Room Storage

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From the Rancho Mirage model in Oasis at Queen Creek.

From the Rancho Mirage model in Oasis at Queen Creek.

It’s easy to let your laundry room become a catch-all for those things you can’t figure out where to put. Holiday decorations, extra hangers, cleaning supplies and other odds and ends find their way into your laundry room cupboards and before you know it they’re full. Instead of this kind of unintentional use, how about turning your laundry room into a resource for specific types of storage? Here are a few suggestions.

Entertainment Central: Vases and other elements for table centerpieces and buffet decorations could find a convenient place in one or more laundry room cabinets. Add a frog, some pebbles or marbles for helping to stabilize flower arrangements and you’re ready for flower arranging or creating an interesting base for a buffet arrangement. You might add some of your favorite serving pieces and table linens for one-stop-shopping before a party.

Clothes Management: Pins, scissors and your sewing kit can be kept in the laundry room when you need to sew a button on tighter or stitch up a hem that’s coming loose. Stain removers, wrinkle release spray and even fusible sewing tape for any quick fixes can really come in handy when that jacket and skirt that you really wanted to wear needs mending.

Roadtrip Supplies: Cool bags, paper plates, disposable silverware, condiments in little packets, favorite road games and activities can be organized in one place ready to grab when you decide to take a weekend trip. Don’t forget a map or two for the kids to use to follow along where you’re going – reducing although not eliminating the cries of “are we there yet!”

Gift Wrap Center: Wrapping paper, ribbon, tape, scissors and a nice collection of gift cards help you be ready for those last-minute gift needs. Instead of searching through the house for everything you need, keep a special set of supplies in one cabinet just for gifts.

These are four quick ideas for ways to make the most of the storage in your laundry room. What other ideas can you come up with to make your laundry room useful for more than laundry?

Laundry Room Luxuries

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DSC_0050What does your dream laundry room contain? Let’s start with the newest front-loading washer and dryer. Would you prefer traditional white or do you have the design courage to choose this fire-engine red? Everyone knows that the police notice a red car so that the color sticks out if you’re speeding, but in your laundry room safe in your own home, you can enjoy this daring color with no fear of a ticket.

Next, how about a laundry room sink? Large and deep, this works well for hand laundry, washing small pets, and rinsing out stains.

Some people like to make these sinks home central for mopping floors, with plenty of space to fit a bucket and let a mop drain.

By the way, notice the nice location right above the sink with a rod to hang clothes that need to drip dry. This well-designed laundry room is ready to handle all of your clothes washing needs, and wants!

 DSC_0051Next, how about cabinet and counter space? In this room, open built-in bins can be assigned to each family member to handle homework, mail and other personal items that get misplaced throughout the house. This space makes a great family-central for books, backpacks, keys and mobile devices. There are plenty of outlets to charge anything, and keeping it all in one location makes it easier for you.

DSC_0049Want more? How about yet another area of cabinets and counters? Tucked in the back of the generously-sized room, this unit could be used to hold craft or sewing supplies, pet items or for storing any items of interest to the family. Maybe this could become board-game storage or a good location to handle wrapping paper, ribbon and decorations for birthday and other holiday events. Your choices are only limited by your imagination.

Is this the laundry room of your dreams? Not sure? Well, how about visiting the Fulton Homes Legacy community and taking a look? You’ll find this dream room in the Basha model home. It’s just one space designed with you in mind at Legacy.

 

A Fresh Start on Organizing your Home: The Laundry Room

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From the Fulton Homes La Quinta model

From the Fulton Homes La Quinta model

We use the laundry room a lot, but it is often the most thrown together and ignored room in the house. How about taking an afternoon to really turn this space into a functional and valued place in your home?

Start by thinking about what you would like to use your laundry room for besides laundry. With this Fulton Homes laundry room, you have many more cupboards than you need to store laundry supplies. Here are a few suggestions.

Store household staples. Light bulbs, paper towels, tools, sewing essentials, and office supplies all fit well in a laundry room. Assign cabinets for each category. If you want to keep things in place, you may want to label the shelves.

Store extra supplies. If you are a warehouse shopper, you may be buying dishwasher detergent and toilet paper in bulk. The laundry room provides a handy go-to place for those extras.

Store your craft supplies. If you enjoy scrapbooking, beading or other craft activities, this is a great space to devote to your craft hobbies. It’s easy to reach and yet out-of-the way when other things beckon.

Store projects for your children. These cabinets can hold various games, coloring books or other supplies you can pull out when your children complain that they’re bored. Shop sales at hobby and discount stores for little surprises you can use to entertain little ones on road trips or for sick days.

Use for gifts. If you are a year-round shopper for the holidays, these cabinets can store presents until it’s time to wrap them. It’s even a fairly safe space to hide your children’s presents since they spend very little time in this room.

Of course, you will also want to store detergent and stain-fighting sprays and anything else you use to keep your clothes looking nice. But with a bit of imagination, your laundry room can hold so much more.

Design Tips: Making Your Laundry Room Stand Out

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HRM0344With your Fulton home, your laundry room is generously-sized and functional, like this one from the Spyglass model at Victoria Estates. It’s nice to start with such a lovely space, and take it to the next level. Your laundry room can be the perfect place to experiment with some of your more daring design ideas. Here are a few suggestions to make it stand out.

Color: Have you always wanted a yellow room? How about robin’s egg blue? Or maybe you’re thinking about wallpaper. The room is small enough to make a project like this manageable, but you can create quite an impact with a little cash when you add color.

Art: Notice the bold and bright flowers decorating this laundry room. Maybe you’d enjoy enlargements of your favorite photos of family or your travels. You can get photos blown up to poster size for a reasonable price at most warehouse stores.

Go with a theme: This might be the space where you indulge in your love of country style, or perhaps you enjoy daisies or chickens or antique china. The laundry room is generally just for family, so have fun with the space.

Improve function: Would some hooks make it easier to hang clothes on hangars when they come out of the dryer? Maybe you could use a little sewing kit to tighten loose buttons. This might also be a good room for posting upcoming family events on a bulletin board. Take the time as you do laundry to think about additions you could make to this room to make cleaning clothes easier.

The laundry room is often the most ignored spot in the home, but you can make yours unique and special. So why not make your laundry room a space that makes you smile every time you walk in it?

Laundry Room Provides More than Clean Clothes

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As homebuilders, we at Fulton  understand the needs of women and families and have turned the simple laundry room in some of our models into a full-service space for supporting a number of home needs.

This room from the Tehama model in the Victoria Estates community is a great example.

First, the room provides a deep sink for hand washing and pre-rinsing clothes. It’s large enough to soak the chlorine out of a couple of swimsuits or bleach a soccer uniform that had lots of contact with grass and dirt. Having the sink right next to the washer helps minimize drips on the nice tile floor.

The laundry cupboard space can be used for sewing supplies, extra school or office supplies, or holiday storage. With this many cabinets, special serving dishes for entertaining could also find plenty of room here.

With all the counter space, there’s room for individual laundry baskets for every family member. Dirty clothes would be placed in the assigned hampers and delivered to the laundry room on a specific day and the clean clothes would be replaced in the containers, ready for a trip back to each room. This may be a pipe dream, but it’s worth a shot!

The counter  space complete with electrical outlets creates the perfect opportunity for setting up a common place for specialized technology tools such as a color laser printer or copy/scan/fax machine. With Wi-Fi easily installed in a home, everyone can send their printing requests to the one printer and then walk over to the laundry room to pick up their papers.

And while they’re there, maybe they’ll take the time to bring their clean clothes back to their rooms. Parents can always dream.