UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

Getting fresh: a lively laundry room

While the laundry room is a necessary component of a home, it is not a space that is frequented as much as other rooms. Because of this, it is often left with minimal styling and design.

But some easy additions and do-it-yourself decorations can make this room hold its own in terms of aesthetics.

“Let’s be honest, who likes doing laundry?” said Alan Torrado, event coordinator and design consultant.

Nevertheless, he said, it’s something we do spend quite a lot of time doing.

“Decorate the room with colors that you like and won’t get bored in,” he said. “Your laundry room needs to be an efficient space where everything has its place.”

Some important aspects of a laundry room are proper shelves,

Decorating your laundry room in a style you enjoy will help with the desire to do laundry.

Shelves and hampers are a nice and simple way to organize your laundry room.

“Decorate the room with colors that you like and won’t get bored in.”

cabinets, hooks and clothing racks, whether freestanding or attached to the wall and/or cabinets.

Most importantly, the laundry room should be free of clutter and organized, to help trick your mind you actually want to do laundry.

“One way of storing and displaying laundry detergents is putting your powdered detergent in large glass jars and having them on display,” he said. “It adds some color on the shelves and you can easily see if you are running low on detergent.

“As for liquid detergents, I have my liquid detergent in large squeeze bottles. It makes it easier to fill the detergent compartment in your washing machine.”

Any way you do it, according to Torrado, there are a few essential items needed in every laundry room.

“Every laundry room should have these essential items: a table and folding area to fold everything that comes out of the dryer; an ironing board, clothes hangers and a clothing rack; a three-compartment laundry hamper for sorting whites, darks and colors; a good trash can to throw away used dryer sheets and lint, and to dispose of all the stuff that comes out of the pockets of clothes before you put them into the washer; and an area to put all those loose coins that somehow always appear whenever you are doing laundry,” he said. p