Laundry Room Revamp

Here are a couple of "before" shots of our laundry room. It was actually pretty cool. We have some shelves in there, with some hanging space for clean clothes that need to be hung up. We have a sink and a cabinet, and have to share the space with our water softener and water meter.

The main issue was laundry baskets. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, YouTuber Jordan Page has some cool ideas, including a great system on laundry. But after implementing her system, it felt like our floor space was very much taken up with laundry baskets, and we wanted something more organized.

I made this out of a sheet of plywood (dimensions specific to our space) and some 1x2's, made to fit these laundry baskets. I had to cut out the backsplash first to make room for this, and then basically just set it on top of the counter and caulked the gaps on the bottom (I also had to cut a hole in the top for the ceiling vent). But it's just a basic box - doesn't even have a back - I just used glue and my nail gun (with 2-inch finishing nails) to make it.

See how it basically just sits on the counter, caulked all the way around

The vent in just barely visible in this shot

Something else we needed was some additional shelving. Though we had two full walls of shelves, it still seemed like we were just stacking things everywhere. So I lowered the shelf over the main wall (it was too high anyway), and added one above it for more storage (which also gave us space for more pantry storage - especially for big items).

From the other side

Last, but not least, we thought it would be good to have extra space to fold clothes in there, so I built a folding table to attach to the wall. I made it out of one of the extra doors that came from when we replaced all our doors. It was trickier than making it with solid wood, because I had to add reinforcements at the edges so I didn't have big hollow spaces. I also used extra door hinges I had lying around from that project, and the rest of the scrap 2x3 from my ladder project for the support pieces underneath.

Table up, with dirty laundry baskets underneath

Here are a couple pictures of the supports. It's basically a cross piece that is screwed to the wall, (and which holds the top piece the folding part is hinged to) and some folding brackets attached to the support piece (also with hinges).

 Brackets folded in

Unfolded to support table top

Here's what it looks like folded down - it doesn't take up much floor space at all.

Table folded down, with laundry baskets in front

I almost forgot - I bought an HVLP (high volume low pressure) paint gun a while back from Harbor Freight, because I wanted to see how it would work. It was inexpensive, so I said what the heck? Unfortunately, it needed an air compressor with more power than mine had, so the gun sat dormant for more than a year. Until this project! I recently fixed up an air compressor given to me by a friend (upfitted the supply line with copper tubing instead of rubber, which kept slipping off). I used it on this folding table, and have also used it on a couple more projects since then, and love it. It works wonderfully, and I'm excited to keep honing my ability to use it on more stuff.

Here's a panorama, so you can see the whole space in one shot.