OK, is it just me or does it seem like I have multiple posts about my laundry room and all of the ways I have been redoing it over the years? Amiright??? Well, here is the rub: our laundry room also functions as our pantry. It is an all in one storage area and there is no where else in our house for either a pantry OR laundry machines so we are confined to this tidy 9′ 5″ long by 6 foot wide space. That’s not much, folks. Not much at all. The laundry machines are in a fixed place and so not much can be done about those. There are overhead cabinets over the machines and a fixed base cabinet to the right of the washer. Everything else is basically up for grabs space wise. For the first 11 years in this house I had three freestanding tall shelves along the one unoccupied wall of the room and this housed ALL of our pantry food items as well as paper storage, some cooking equipment and random STUFF that never really found a home anywhere else. We put these shelves in and never moved them. It always bugged me when I walked into this space (which happens 77 times a day) because it was ALLLLLL open shelving. All of the colors and shapes and sizes and STUFF was just out on the shelves and no amount of organization ever made it look better. The bookshelves also had no sides or backs so we were limited to shoving items as far back against the wall as possible with hopes that nothing would fall through the cracks. Again, not an ideal way to approach storage but that was the deal. Even though this is literally the hardest and most versatile room of our house it has gotten the least amount of love and organization over the years. I decided to take a little time before our Christmas trip to Utah to really figure out how I needed this space to work. First off, I needed and wanted enclosed cabinets. I wanted the cabinets to be deeper than my current shelves. I also needed greater can storage. Overall I wanted the organization to be a lot cleaner than it was in its current state. I took these parameters and researched cabinets and storage solutions and this is what I came up with.

Here is where we started once I cleared the three freestanding shelves out. We noticed two things immediately: 1) SO much space and 2) those ceilings are so low!

After sweeping and mopping out the original space I took to the garage for some building. I chose these cabinets from Lowes because the dimensions were exactly what I was looking for, plus I liked the overall clean look. I could have spent A LOT more money on cabinets but chose not to; no need to get carried away with the laundry cabinets! Building my first cabinet took an hour (made a few mistakes with the directions), the second took about 40 minutes and the third just under 30. Basically I am now a pro at assembling these cabinets but I never want to do it again :).

The kids helped me get the first two into the space but by the time I needed to get the third one in no one was home so I muscled it in myself. ROAR! I was quite proud of myself.

This is a good view of the three cabinets lined up with the door to the laundry room in the foreground. It is such a clean looking space now. All of the boxes and containers and STUFF neatly hidden behind tall doors. Ahhhhh…much better.

I adjusted each shelf in each cabinet to hold specific items (taller shelf space for the dog food, shorter shelves to hold school lunch trays, etc.). This was also a great opportunity to go through EVERYTHING and toss/donate what we did not need or want and organize what we were keeping. It was also a fantastic way to make an extensive grocery shopping list and know we were not missing anything!

Next I added this rack to the remaining wall space to the left of our three new cabinets. This rack provides us with even more space for canned goods. We also keep our vacuum and a few cleaning supplies back here.

We restocked the other rack at the other end of the laundry room as well.

I mounted one of these wooden containers on the wall next to my washing machine to hold detergent and laundry supplies. This freed up space in the cabinet above; hurray for even MORE space!

I think I got this tin “Grocery” sign at Michaels a few years ago.

This “Laundry Co.” sign is from Kirkland. We have a Kirkland store near us and I never go in. One day I did, saw this large tin sign and bought it. It’s probably good that I don’t go in there too often :).

I’m so happy with how this little redo came together. Here is the pricing breakdown:

I spent $450 on three cabinets from Lowes. Then $30 on the wall rack from Bed Bath & Beyond. I purchased a few white plastic containers in various sizes (but same design) from Target for $30 total. Everything else was just moved around/adjusted/repurposed. So for just a touch over $500 we now have a laundry room and pantry that function a lot better and hold a lot more. I would still like to take out the existing counter and cabinet to the right of my laundry machines but that is a project for sometime later this year. For now I am satisfied with the clean look of the storage and am so happy to have FINALLY gone through all of the cabinets and drawers and organized things!