Laundry Folding Nook

When I wake up in the morning, once I realize who I am, where I am, and what day it is, I usually tend to quickly go over my plans for the day in my groggy head.  Appt.’s, chores, responsibilities usually enter first, then my mind veers off to the fun parts of the day.  Those are the thoughts that usually kick me into gear and get my butt out of bed.  On Friday’s, not only do I look forward to spending time with my family over the weekend, but I really get excited about these “Friday” posts.  My heart races a little, I feel energized, and I just feel really good inside.  Almost like a state of euphoria.  We all need that feeling in our lives.  It motivates us to push ourselves and brings us such inner peace and joy.  Most people recognize these feelings as “passion”.  I’ve been blessed finding my passion later in life, and I sure recognize it and hold it tight now that I have found it.  My wish for you is to find your passion if you haven’t yet.  It’s never too late.  Search for it, it’s there.

So now, on with my “passion”…

Ahhh…the laundry room.  The place where I spend way too much time sorting white undies from dark undies.  The place where I dread folding approximately 1.5 loads of laundry every day.  The place where socks disappear and pennies re-appear before our eyes.  The place where we scrabble to find our keys, put on our shoes, and notice the time on the clock.  The place where Dude gets his collar before he gets his “walkie”.  The place where we wipe our snowy boots after building a snowman.  The place where I kiss my hubby and children good bye every morning, and where I hug them hello every evening.  I bet if you think about all of the events that take place in your laundry room, or laundry closet, or where ever your laundry is done, I bet a lot goes on there.  It’s actually a special place.

One problem.  We have a bi-folding door closet in our laundry room, and it drives me crazy.  You know, the ones that have 2 doors that pull out.  Ours are beautiful 6 panel real wood doors, but they are so loud, heavy, and awkward.  Not to mention all of the wasted space they use up.  I couldn’t let this go on any longer.

I’ve been working on our laundry room bi-folding door closet for months.  A little here, a little there.  My husband did a lot of the work.  I couldn’t have done this make over with out him.  I just don’t have “building” skills like he does.  My plan…to make a “laundry folding nook” out of the closet.  Here’s the before:

You can see on the floor where we store all of our Winter gloves, hats, etc.  This is awful when you are in a hurry trying to find a matching glove in such a dark, low space.  Not to mention we don’t use most of these coats.  This has all been bothering me, and the rest of the family for a long time.  Here’s what it looks like now…

One of the first changes I made, was the chair.  We needed a place to sit when we put on our shoes.  I found the chair at a thrift store.  I painted it white and reupholstered it with a towel I had.  You can visit this project here: “chair makeover“.  I noticed she looks cute from our driveway too.

After we cleaned out the closet, and took the doors off (just a couple screws), I worked on the chair while Rick built the folding table from wood we purchased at Home Depot.  What a guy I have.

Don’t make fun of the rugs in our garage.  They work really great 🙂

We knew we needed not only a space to fold the laundry, but a better system for our Winter gear.  I asked Rick to put the shelves on the right for that, but leave the left open for our laundry bin.  We left just enough room so we can still open the bin.  Rick finished off everything with some cute moldings.  All of the lumber cost less than $40.  I found the metal baskets at Hobby Lobby and now we have easy access to all of our Winter gear.

You may have noticed the pre-existing wall paper (it’s pin striped, but difficult to see in this photo).  We decided it would be too much work to remove it, so I fixed the edges that were coming up with some left over wall paper glue.  Then I covered up some holes with decor.  The pin stripes actually go quite well with my other wall paper.  The chalkboard is a peice of wood that I spray painted with chalk board paint.   The frame was done very much like our bedroom frame which you can find here: “bedroom makeover“.

If you would like to go way back to the laundry room before I did the original make over, just click here: “laundry room makeover“.

Here’s a reminder:

Before I leave you today, I wanted to tell you about this quick dessert I made for my Mom’s 79th birthday.  Everyone loved these and they were so easy.

• Bake cupcakes from store bought boxed cake mix.
• Frost with canned vanilla frosting.
• Top with halved strawberries & chocolate chips.
• I told you they were easy.

Now go make yourself a nook in one of your closets!