Laundry room laments

We had a nasty surprise when we entered the cellar yesterday. In the laundry room there was red rusty water flowing from the hot water tank on to the floor. The floor covering felt squishy under our feet and there was a faint smell, which we didn’t like very much.

We felt it was best to call someone in to assess the damage. A man came this morning and quickly confirmed our suspicions of a leak in the tank, but worse than that, he concluded that it had been going on for a quite a while.

So, out went the dodgy old water tank and off came the floor covering, only to reveal a soaking wet cement floor covered in a slimy substance I’d rather not describe in detail, except to say it was not a sight for the squeamish.

I believe you can imagine our first thought: My God, how much is this going to cost?

Luckily, we were able to breath a sigh of relief a little later, when we found out that some of it is going to be covered by our house insurance. We still have to shell out quite a bit, but it won’t break the bank.

THE PROBLEM. If you open your hot water tank and it looks like this, then you know you're in trouble.

Certainly, the laundry room was on our long list of things to fix up, but there was quite a few things I’d rather have had done first. Now, it seems, our priorities have been changed for us. So, I suppose there’s nothing else to do but look on the bright side and try and think how we would like to organise things down there.

First of all we would like to paint the tatty old pine panel white. Then we want to install some cupboards. As it is, there is absolutely nowhere to stash things. However, we will have to wait until everything is dry before we can do anything at all. There is a huge fan and a dehumidifier working round the clock there now, so hopefully in a few days things will look better.

The plumber who came round in the afternoon was a highly efficient character, and before we could say “cold shower” he had rigged up a brand new hot water tank in an adjacent room, so we can’t complain of being much inconvenienced really.

KNUT IS ON THE JOB. The dehumidifier will have to work around the clock for some days to come.

Now the question is: Is there any way to make a laundry room seem inviting and stylish? Not like the sort of room that one would want to hang out in, but somewhere nice to work.

If you have got any advice, it would be most welcome.