After two months of being in our new home, the first space to feel “done” is our laundry room! And while I’m grateful for every room in our house, I am especially thankful for an efficient and beautiful (to me anyway!) space where I can scrub, wash and fold my family’s laundry to my heart’s content! [Raise your hand if you actually love doing laundry!!! Nobody? Just me? Cool…]
When we first started designing our home, I wanted a separate mud- and laundry room but ultimately we ended up combining the two to save on square footage. Now that we’ve used the space for a while, having the two together turned out to be the best set up for our family. Theo’s able to take off his dirty clothes as soon as he walks in or our dog comes in from his walk and we’re able to wipe him down and throw the towel in the hamper before even entering the main living area.
One of the rules I had when building this home is that each space we tackled during the build process had to be fully done. If the budget didn’t allow for us to get everything in a specific space, then we just held off completely. I learned from our last home that if I did some upgrades to a space (for example, if I added only lower cabinets to the laundry room and not uppers) then I would likely just end up living with it that way for far longer than I would if the space was empty and in need of finishing. So while we have a joint mud/laundry room, the only part of the room that is finished is the laundry area. The mudroom will be tackled in the (hopefully) near future.
Our entire house (with the exception of one feature wall) is painted in Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace. Our laundry room cabinetry and shelves are custom made by Sebo Woodwork. I wanted a colour that resonated with a typical laundry room and that was a little outside of my white, black and wood tone comfort zone – so we went with Benjamin Moore Mount Saint Anne as the colour for the cabinets. It’s a subtle blue that can lean towards grey or green depending on the lighting and it feels timeless for a laundry room. The shelves are a custom colour used by our millwork company – they call it “clamshell”.
In terms of cabinetry, there were a few items on my wish list that we were sure to include. The first being a space to hang clothes – we installed the clothes rod near the sink area for those items that have to be hand washed and hung. The second must-have was a rack for those items that we have to lay flat – we opted for three pull out drawers with metal racks in each that I can just close with clothes in them so that they’re not on display while drying. The third must-have was upper cabinetry that went to the ceiling – we did a combination of uppers and open shelving to allow the space to feel bigger and brighter.
We went with a classic 3cm white quartz countertop mainly because of it’s clean and low maintenance characteristics. We included a quartz drip ledge under our farmhouse sink and I love how it stands out against the blue of the cabinetry.
We extended the backsplash from the counter to the ceiling to highlight the height of the room (10 feet) and give the space a fresher and more finished look. The backsplash is Pasha Marlow Cloud from Euro Tile & Stone.
The floor tile was actually our least expensive flooring (coming in at under $1.50/sq ft) but it turned out to be my favourite tile in the whole house! I knew I wanted a diamond-patterned checkered floor for this space but I had a hard time finding something that would meet my vision at an affordable price point. And then, on a whim, I was scouring through pages and pages of tile options on the Home Depot Canada website and came across two 12×12 tiles that I thought could work well together (gray/white). They weren’t even displayed on the same page but I knew they would complement each other. I was skeptical at first given how inexpensive they were but my tile installer explained that so long as tile is installed properly, we wouldn’t notice a difference in the flooring and he was right, we don’t.
Finally, when all of the “hardscape” was done, it came time to add the finishing touches. The first thing I knew I wanted were the pull-out hampers from The Home Edit x Steele collection. We designed our hamper opening to accommodate two 3-bushels pull-outs and had one labelled “Laundry” and the other labelled “Towels”. For hardware, we went with polished chrome latches on the double-door cabinets, knobs on the single-door cabinets and bar pulls on the drawers. The lantern pendant above the sink is quite large in person and is the perfect “antique” white (almost cream) finish.
The decor is mostly items I shopped from my home. We added some hooks near the sink to house our brushes and hand towel and added a frame above that I got years ago from a thrift store. In the corner we have two of my favourite McGee&Co. items – their raw steel stand that is quite stately and versatile and their in-house white planter.
What is not pictured in this first Home Tour Series is the “mud” side of the room which currently includes, among other things, a bar fridge, an old bench and hooks for jackets. Once our kitchen fridge is delivered (apparently we’ll be lucky if we get it within the next 6 to 12 months…), then we’ll be able to move the bar fridge to the basement and start working on adding a broom closet, a gift wrap station and a bench with storage. Until then, I’ll just enjoy this prettier view of the space.
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