Small space: Chic and dreamy laundry room

Laundry room problem

An unfinished, uninspiring laundry room.

Laundry room layout: Solution

To eliminate one of the most time-consuming tasks of the design process, Sarah finalized the floor plan and sourced her most important materials before Day 1 of the challenge. “The biggest layout problem was the furnace and water heater,” she says. “They were the first things you saw when you walked in the room.” She landed upon the ideal solution to strike a visual balance: a wall of white oak-veneered sliding doors to conceal the “guts” of the home on one side counter-weighted by a work area on the other. Originally, she planned for a bank of cabinets above the work surface. “But with the sliding doors, I didn’t want to close off the space completely.” Instead, she opted for a chunky floating shelf in matching white oak.

Laundry room renovation: After

The One Room Challenge was the perfect thing “to light a fire under our butts,” says homeowner and designer Sarah Walker of her basement laundry room reno. She rallied her handy husband, Graham, to do all the construction. “He’s the real star here,” she adds. The work area’s varying counter heights create more rhythm and interest than a straight run would have; the brass accents along with the white oak help warm up the cool palette.