Before Tour Of The Laundry Room And Bathroom Combo

One of the projects we’ve had on our short-list of home improvement plans has been moving the laundry room into the first-floor bathroom and refreshing the bathroom. We have talked about it FOREVER so when the signups for the fall 2024 One Room Challenge (ORC) rolled around, I decided to dive head-first into it and make it happen.

Well, at least the laundry room side of things. I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew especially after finishing a full gut renovation of our primary bathroom for last fall’s ORC. While today’s post is a before tour of our soon-to-be bathroom slash laundry room space, for the ORC I’ll just be finishing the laundry room. Maybe some of the bathroom. It is one of our 2024 project goals.

I have precisely zero point zero ideas about what I’m doing with the space. That’s my big project for this week, figure it out. But I do have two requirements.

One, the laundry room makeover must be functional. In Angie Dream World (a beautiful place I might add full of moody, collected spaces), the laundry room will also function as storage space for all our cleaning supplies. It’s such a small space so I’m not sure that it’s possible but I sure am going to try.

And two, the makeover must be SUPER budget-friendly. I’m talking a shoestring budget here of $500 or less. I’m also not sure that is possible but we’re going to be as thrifty as possible with this project, reuse as much as we can, and DIY our hearts out to save money.

In fact, we already have a free window sash that we’re going to convert into a casement to replace the small window currently in the room.

I’ll share more plans next week but today, let’s take a look at all the juicy, cringeworthy before images. Along with a little story time about how our bathroom came to be the most dysfuntional room in our home.

Bathroom On Move-In Day

Do any of you OG blog readers remember what this bathroom looked like when we first moved in? Hint…it had nine towel bars and five doors.

Here’s the same shot from above but from the day we bought the house. Ah…memories.

And here’s a better angle to show the laundry room. This picture is taken from the first-floor bedroom (currently the laundry/playroom), looking into the kitchen. The bathroom is through the door on the left.

To help orient you, the house floorplan is located in our master renovation plan post from many moons ago. It’s changed slightly but that’s a post for another day.

Essentially, the photo above is what will become the laundry room. We’ve closed the door from the kitchen into this small hallway to make space for a refrigerator. We’ve also closed the door between the bedroom and the hallway so we no longer have two doorways into the bathroom.

Our children don’t seem to understand this concept of two doors and knocking. They barge in on us and guests on the regular. I’ve since moved a wardrobe over the doorway to keep them from charging through.

Phase One Makeover

We started giving the bathroom a phase one makeover back in 2017 but you know what also happened in 2017? Baby number one came along and all house projects came to a screeching halt. But it was starting to come together, albeit slowly.

We removed the pocket doors, added a planked ceiling, and built an adorable medicine cabinet into the space between studs. We reframed an old mirror and found some super cheap light fixtures.

The Last Five Years

But then we did this thing that I hate. It’s one of my greatest character flaws. I changed my mind. Then changed my mind again. And again and again.

The poor bathroom/laundry room space has been through so many iterations and changes that it’s hard to keep track. Like let’s cut down to just one door here, that didn’t work, how about two doors here, hmmm, maybe if we build a wall here we could make a hall through there. And so on and so on. It’s been almost ten years of this.

It stems from indecision from this space being used temporarily as a bathroom/laundry room combo. The eventual plan is to make a mudroom and laundry room where our current kitchen footprint is now with the kitchen moving to the dining side. Having an eat-in kitchen next to a dining room never made sense, so we’re shaking that up.

But to make our plans work, the laundry room needs to move temporarily. Its current location is the first floor bedroom, currently used as a playroom, which is first on the docket for major renovations on the main level. We’ll start there then work our way around finishing with the kitchen and mudroom.

But anyway, back to the laundry room.

Current State Of The Laundry/Bathroom

And now onto the current state of the first-floor bathroom and soon-to-be laundry room. Here’s a view from the functional bathtub/shower looking into the little hallway where the laundry room will go. It’s the current home of a vintage clawfoot tub for the last few years. We got it for a steal and have been storing it in here until we could fully renovate this space.

And the current storage area of the bathroom, where the laundry room will go. Complete with ALL the unkemptness.

The things stored here are 100% haphazard. There is no rhyme or reason to it. From dog grooming supplies to Colby’s toiletries since he likes to get ready down here (although he showers in our bathroom upstairs…make it make sense!), sunscreen, first aid supplies, extra rolls of toilet paper, and more.

Also, that door goes to our kitchen where our refrigerator currently resides.

And here’s a shot from the other side of the laundry-room-to-be. This door goes into the first floor bedroom which is currently used as a playroom and laundry room.

Fun fact…when we first looked at our home and then on inspection day, no one seemed to notice that our home did not have hookups for a washer and dryer. We didn’t realize this until we had moved in, were about to purchase a washer and dryer, and went to look for hookups. None to be found!

We had no idea where we wanted our laundry space so we just picked the first floor bedroom since we used it for storage and miscellaneous things when we first moved in. Now that space is the girls’ playroom and we’re itching to move the laundry out of there. Because no one (aka the laundry fairy…aka Mom…aka moi) likes to step on Legos and beads while folding clothes.

Here’s a shot from the other door in our kitchen leading into the bathroom. The current location of our washer and dryer is just beyond that wall.

You can see here our indecision concerning door locations. For a while, there was a wall on the left that led into the bathroom. Our plan was to move the shower plumbing to the clawfoot tub under the window. Then the old tub area could be a laundry room and this hall could be a walkthrough to the other bedroom.

As we made steps toward that we forgot to factor in the amount of space the washer and dryer needed. They fit, but it was a tight fit that meant they were sticking out more than we wanted.

It also didn’t make much sense with the way I like to sort and do laundry. I needed a space for a laundry sorting hamper. So we changed our minds and now the laundry is moving to the other end.

Here you can see the current bathtub with the door to the kitchen open. It will be nice to have laundry adjacent to the kitchen once again.

So now that I’ve shown you one of the spaces in our home that’s untouched and cringeworthy (the hallway area at the end of the bathroom), it’s time I put together some plans. The space is super small but if I commit to space planning first, focus on function, and pare down to the bare necessities, it will work.

Also, the jury is currently deliberating if that wall between where the laundry will be should stay or go. It’s not load bearing so that’s an option. I like that it defines the two spaces. But it would be nice to have more natural light in the bathroom. Hmmm.

Pssst…This post is part of the Fall 2024 One Room Challenge. All of the participants are posting about their projects this week so be sure to go check them out and follow along. Here’s the link to all of the week one project updates.

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