My New Laundry - Part 1

For those of you who have been following me for a while now, you would know that last year we renovated our laundry... and I never did get around to posting the finished photos.  This is probably because it is still not quite finished (in my eyes), but I decided that I would share with you what we have done so far - which is actually a whole lot!

I am very lucky to have a big laundry, which is also my sewing room.  This meant lots of careful planning and strategising (is that even a word??) about the best way to renovate to make the most of the space.  Knowing that I currently have 2 x double overhead cupboards and 3 drawers totally empty indicates to me that we achieved our goal of maximising the available space with functional cupboards - to accommodate the old contents of the room - plus so much more!

Ok, so step one was to rip out the old laundry! (I posted about my old laundry here.) Pretty much the sink and the sewing bench were the only fixed items in the room. (Unfortunately, I can't find one photo of the old sewing bench, which is on the opposite side of the room to this photo!  No before shots sorry.  Just imagine a wall to wall bench, with a small cupboard underneath on the far right side.) The bench and cupboard pictured below was our old bar, so that got relocated (again) into the fishing room, and the rest of it went to the dump.

I hopped onto the Bunnings website and used their online planning tool to create my dream laundry.  It uses the measurements of the room to create a virutual room, and then you simply slot in the cupboards into the available space.  It was so easy to use and because I am such a visual person, it was great to be able to see it all transforming before my eyes!

I ordered custom made benches through Ikea, which didn't even take two weeks to have made.  They were made perfectly to specification and the benchtop is a really durable surface, which is sure to last for many years to come.

And after many hours of hard work (not for me - for the hubs!)...

You can see where we pulled the old sewing bench off the wall, and where the tiles were laid around the cupboard.
Typical pose by my hubby - anyone would think he was a plumber ;)

I finally had this amazing space to call my own!  I now have 13 cupboards, 8 drawers and 2 shelves to play with!

The 2 shelves below are designed to house two washing baskets -one for washing and one for ironing.  I have finally ended my epic search to find the 'perfect' baskets ie: baskets that fill the available space in these two holes, as last week I finally struck gold when I found just what I had been looking for!  But I still need to spraypaint and fabric-line them, so I am using my old baskets until that project is done.

I will do some more detailed posts about some of the other features in this room, but for today, I will leave you with some of my favourite things we did...

A pull-out clothes line for wet weather:

A wall-mounted Robinhood ironing centre:

A pull-out hose from the tap for thoroughly washing things down:

Although I haven't finished the painting, decorating and organising in here, it is such a great room, and I am really happy with the end product!  I love that everything has a home, and that I have plenty of room to move around in here and do my jobs.  Oh, and I just love my new laundry tins that I scored this week at Aldi - for just a fraction of the cost of others I have seen elsewhere :)

Read more about My Laundry Make-Over here.