Laundry Room Decor Ideas

Coming up with some laundry room decor ideas was a must once I got the ok to redecorate what I thought was the dreariest room in our house. I literally used to dread going into our laundry room. It was cluttered, beige and uninspired. Made for very little joy on laundry day.

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But now, with the laundry room remodel, I think it might be my favorite room in the house! And before you start thinking this was a big expensive overhaul–it really wasn’t. There were some Christmas gifts involved and some gift cards and rebates used so my out of pocket was about $250 because I insisted on a new overhead light, but the total supplies to redo this room was about $800. DIY really helps bring down the cost!

Side note: prices have REALLY risen since I did this DIY. Apologies in advance for inaccurate project costs.

Before the Laundry Room Renovation

Everyone loves a good before picture, right? Here’s what my cluttered space looked like before. I’ve got swimmers and triathletes in the house, and the best thing I ever did was kick their gear to the garage. There are far fewer loose towels, bathing suits and random bits of energy bar wrappers littering the floor with them relocated.

For me, open shelving is a terrible idea. At the date of renovation, we’d lived in the house for almost 7 years. I swear there was stuff put up on that shelf the day we moved in that was forgotten about since.

Our laundry room often became the “catch all” room when we were frantically cleaning for company to come. It was a terrible looking room I closed the door on anyway. BUT, de-cluttering, organizing and a little decorating made a night and day difference!

The Laundry Room Floor

We’ll start with the laundry room decor ideas at the bottom: the floor. The new floor in the laundry room was a happy accident. I originally bought peel and stick tiles to put on the ceiling. (The ones I specifically used are no longer available, but you can see the specs in this link.)

Come to find out, the humidity and their lack of true stickiness made them all fall down after I painstakingly applied them overhead. It was a bit of a bummer. And since I could not stand to waste all that material, I gave it a shot on the floor. Conveniently, the ceiling is the same size as the floor. And installation? Literally done with a steel ruler and an exacto knife.

The peel and stick planks were originally meant for a wall and I’m sure they do fine there, but they do have a little bit of a sheen, so I think they might look a little funky on a wall. Maybe in a bathroom they would be OK? They’ve been down on the floor in the laundry for about seven months now and honestly they work perfectly. They weren’t a huge investment at about $60 for the area covered (I did not do underneath the washer and dryer.)

If it ever comes to a point where I have to peel them up, it won’t be a big loss and they really do make the room look a little more designer and put together looking. Clean up is easy on them as well. I don’t really have the option to take the tile floor out of my house at the moment, so this is a good intermediate solution for us.

Stock Cabinets

I’ve always really hated the open shelf we had in the laundry room, so it was a huge deal did not have to look at all the junk anymore. I also found when I put in these cabinets that I had a whole lot of junk sitting on that shelf that I didn’t need any longer or that was just that – junk.

My parents gifted us the cabinets for Christmas last year. Although, it was an exhaustive hunt all over for cheap finished cabinets — I even looked for used cabinets to put up in the space. IKEA had a nice set that would’ve worked great, but they were out of stock everywhere in the state of Florida.

I found these shaker style cabinets at Home Depot came in the exact size combinations I needed. They were already painted dove gray and were super easy to install on our own. Or, I should say it was very easy for my husband to install on his own. I might’ve held a level or something, but I really was pretty useless putting them up.

We’ve been busy little renovators, and we were able to recycle the old cabinet handles from our kitchen and put them up here.

Rustic DIY Shelving

Now, when I ordered those pretty cabinets for our DIY laundry room renovation, I did not have enough money in the budget for the cabinets to go all the way across the wall. An inexpensive solution to make the wall look stylish in that big gaping space was necessary, and I thought a set of rustic shelves would be perfect! A DIY set of rustic shelves, that is.

How I made my shelves

The floating shelf brackets came from Amazon. I also found the brackets on Etsy, but they were much more expensive and mine came in a set of eight. I plan to use the extra set upstairs in my sons bedroom during his remodel. After the tile went in, I had my handy husband and father-in-law install the brackets for me. Their job was done at this point, and the rest of the room was up to me!

Before the price of wood was insane, I was able to purchase a 2 x 12 plank of lumber and have Home Depot cut it into three pieces that snuggly fit into my shelf space at the store. I’m going to note here: my car is not big enough to carry home a 10 foot piece of anything, so I frequently have the store cut items for me before I go home.

After I made my made sure my board fit into the space I plan to put it in, I went about prepping the wood by sanding it down thoroughly on all the edges. I wiped up the dust with a damp rag and stained the boards with Minwax stain in Ebony. They turned up GORGEOUS. Better than I thought they would!

***To show how NOT perfect I am, I will fully admit there was an incident during the staining process where I spilled half a bottle of stain on my hand. I had to wait for it to wear off — multiple scrubbings did not help. A DIY party foul that totally tickled the family.

Accessorizing the Laundry Room Shelves

I bought a few baskets (you can buy them here), and scoured the house for accessories for the shelf. We keep our sunscreen, batteries and flashlights in the baskets. I picked up the laundry sign at Michael’s last year. they always seem to have a section for decorating your laundry room, and are worth a gander for some laundry room inspiration.

Cleaning Supply Organization

One of the things it really always annoyed me about my laundry room (and the floor) was the clutter of the mops and pails and laundry baskets and ironing board etc. etc. In the remodel, we got smart and found some things to hang all our stuff up on the walls instead of in between things on the floor.

These hooks are pretty cheap on Amazon for the ironing board and got it off the ground. I put a sign over the blank part to give it a little pizzazz. I also splurged for a new ironing board cover that would match the room to replace the 10+ year old cover. One more detail that helped pull the room together.

A broom and mop holder hang out behind the door so I don’t even have to see them when I walk into the room.

Another purchase that has proven to be excellent is the wall mounted drying rack. We previously had one that popped up and sat on the floor. Of course, nobody ever popped it down when it wasn’t in use, so it took up half of my floor space most of the time in my very small laundry room. The new one hangs on the wall and can be pulled out from the wall for use. It’s awesome. And pretty!

The baskets that used to sit on top of the washer and dryer to collect dirty rags and towels now fit neatly under the utility sink and the towels fit in the cabinet above. I did find that we were still trying to use the top of the washer and dryer for clutter. To solve this, I put these two gray baskets (buy them here on Amazon) on top to collect little things to keep the new finish on the washer and dryer and the room looking neat.

Another purchase that I never knew I needed but I’m so glad I have now is this dryer lint bin. People in my family are at least cleaning out the dryer lint trap when they do their laundry, but they tended to leave the dryer lint on top of the dryer. Because the trashcan is so far away. Now, instead of being lazy beasts, they can put the dryer lint into the little dryer lint collector and mom can empty it when it gets full. I’m OK with that, because now I don’t have to look at dryer lint balls all over the laundry room.

DIY Subway Tile

In a fortunate moment, I got my hands on $100 gift card to Home Depot. I knew what I was going to use it on immediately! I wanted subway tile on the wall in the laundry room. Conveniently, my very talented father-in-law was visiting shortly after the cabinets went up and he installed the 3 x 6 white subway tile for me.

We used charcoal grout to finish it – – but I will tell you there was no small amount of cussing at me for that choice as it was very difficult to clean up! Worth the effort I say because it looks fabulous.

Also, I put a fresh coat of white paint on the walls to cover the light grey beige that was there. It really brightened up the room!

DIY Laundry Room Art

My favorite DIY project in the room was this piece of clothes pin art. I used my Cricut to make a stencil, added a couple coats of paint on a pre-made slat board plaque, and voila–laundry room art project done. I had all the materials in the house for this piece, so it was a freebie. A great laundry room decor idea anyone can make.

Vintage Schoolhouse Light Fixture

I really love this light fixture that replaced the fluorescent light in the laundry. Not going to lie–it wasn’t the first choice, nor the first light purchased for the room.

The first light I bought did not accommodate the opening of the cabinet doors without smacking into the light shade lamps. Since I knew I would not be the only one opening the cabinet doors, and no one else would be very careful with the lights, I definitely had to find I fixture that didn’t dangle down from the ceiling as much.

I thought a schoolhouse light would look great here, but had to look pretty hard for one that was oversized. I ended it buying this one at Wayfair. It’s 17 inches wide with 14 inch inch drop. An no one has managed to hit it with a door yet!

More to come!

There are one or two projects I still need to do in the laundry room remodel, but there is a old car project in the garage that has to leave before I can get out and do the woodwork for it. I’d like to put casings around the window and maybe some crown moulding. (I love crown and will put it anywhere.) I’d also like to replace the utility sink with something prettier, but have yet to find a sink deep enough for our needs that looks any better than the one we have. But the hunt is half the fun!

Hope these laundry room decor ideas inspire some thoughts on making your own laundry space amazing!