Add a Touch of Luxe to Your Old Laundry
It might be one of the most practical rooms in your home, but with research showing Aussies spend more than a year of their lives slaving over their laundry, it’s no wonder the old wash room is now getting its time in the limelight.
Sure, it doesn’t have the pulling power of an amazing kitchen or bathroom when it comes to seducing buyers, but the modern laundry can definitely be a showpiece, with clutter-free surfaces, sleek joinery and lashings of room to toil over all those mundane tasks. For those of us who don’t have the space or cash to splurge on a dream laundry, there’s still plenty you can do on a modest budget.
Take this laundry above, for example. To gut and replace it with a fabulous new one, would have cost at least $10,000. Instead, I used specialty paint products and a few basic updates to cosmetically refresh it for less than $1,000 in just a single weekend.
I chose White Knight tile paint to gloss over the gaudy tiles, White Knight laminate paint tinted to Taubmans “Grey Bonnet” to cover up those dreary, old timber cupboards, and then replaced the knobs with some smart black ones. I decided to ditch the lurid green benchtop and buy a marble-speck new laminate one for $265, extending it over the washing machine for a more streamlined look that created extra, useable bench space.
I did a similar revamp on this laundry above, but instead of replacing the benchtop, laminate painted it and then sealed it with White Knight Bench Top clear protective coating.
Accessorise & improvise!
Of course, if you can stretch your budget a little further, there are all sorts of clever ways to add style and storage to your laundry:
- Open shelving keeps clutter off the benchtops and provides additional storage space
- You can buy super stylish laundry accessories, like seagrass baskets or cute decorative tins, very cheaply these days from places like Target, KMart & Ikea, so there’s simply no excuse for ugly plastic buckets!
- If you have a spare wall, think about hanging space for shirts to dry. A simple hanging rail mounted to your wall certainly won’t set any budget back!
- If you’re adding custom cupboards, pre-empt built-in storage for things like ironing boards, dirty clothes baskets, etc. These very things make a laundry look untidy so stash them out of sight
Fabulous ! As always with Cherie.
Hello Cherie
We love your stuff and read all your emails. We did a full reno a couple of years back and saved money in every room of the house by following your advice. We just did a kitchen and bathroom last summer and your book came in handy for hints too.
Keep up the good work! Thank you!
Bron Nichols
Very clever and looks super … thank you Cherie