New laundry room

At long last our new laundry room is completed. Some of you might remember from last summer that I told you how we had a leak in the cellar. It turned out to be worse than expected, and the repair process went on for months with large fans drying the room, the floor which had to be broken up for a new drain to be installed, the stopcock which had to be replaced and a lot of other stuff that I'd rather forget. As you can imagine, it ended up costing quite a bit. It stings having to dish out more than 30,000 kroner (3,000 GBP) in unforeseen expenses, just to pay the plumber. When the time finally came to furnish the room, there was not much money left. It was enough for a trip to IKEA, and then we did what we could to find inexpensive solutions and salvage old stuff.

The result is, as you can see, not a super-modern, streamlined laundry room, but a bright and pleasant room where it's nice to work. It's quite an improvement from the old, dingy room with its dark pine walls and red-painted mouldings. (Which you can see here.)

It was a challenge to find good solutions in such a small room with three doors, but at last we have enough storage space. We even managed to squeeze a small cupboard in between the washing machine and the hot water tank. There is no space for the tumble dryer here, but there is space for it in the next room.

 Don’t worry - the walls are not lopsided. :-) It's just Hubby that has played with his camera again.

One can fit a lot into a typical 80 centimeter wide kitchen cabinet from IKEA.

This is my favourite part of the room. In this little nook there was room for some narrow shelves, which Hubby made from planks. Here we have space for the detergents and such, and it's incredibly practical and handy.

The old zinc boxes have in their time been used for storing glass photographic plates. Now they have been given new life here.

Like most other ladies in Bloglandia, I also have Durance products in the laundry room (they are irresistible, aren’t they?). I do not use laundry detergents from Durance though, because I think that conventional detergents do a better job, but I buy bottles of Durance hand soap, which I pour over into soap dispensers.

A good hand cream is important to have readily available for use after you have washed and scrubbed. Especially now in winter, when it's so easy to get dry hands.

I decorated the shelves with lace. A small leftover turned the piggy bank into a French maid. Having a piggy bank in the laundry room is actually a useful tip. All the pennies that are found in trouser pockets end up here.

An old jam jar does the job as a container for stain remover. The two metal boxes with washing powder have stickers with Whites and Coloureds. I had to cut a little off the stickers to make them fit, but it does not look too bad, I feel.

To make the most of space above the washing machine and the hot water tank, we cut some MDF to appropriate lengths and painted them white. Then I bought baskets to fit. They were a bargain at half price. Hubby was so frustrated because he could never remember what was inside them, so I bought some small zinc plates and wrote on them what the baskets contain.

Over the sink we installed a rail so clothes can hang to drip dry.

We chose to keep the old ceiling lamp. Now that the room is painted in bright colours, it actually offers ample light. Also, I think that it looks quite nice too.

The same rail from the IKEA Bygel line was also mounted on the wall.

We also bought a Grundtal drying rack to mount behind one of the doors. It can be folded against the wall when not in use, so it doesn’t get in the way of the door.

The large drying rack has been placed on hooks behind another door where it is out of the way when not in use. We also mounted a row of pegs. Here you can see my old-fashioned feather duster. I discovered some years ago that it is incredibly handy to use for ornaments and narrow shelves.

Some hotels are courteous enough to provide their guests with proper laundry bags. They are very handy when travelling. The fabric breathes, so it is much better than storing laundry in plastic bags. I also use them when I’m going to the swimming pool.

I use a large wicker basket for the laundry. It holds a lot and is comfortable to carry. Actually, I think it’s intended for use in the garden, but never mind that.

The enamel soap dish that I got for Christmas hangs by the sink. It is so incredibly lovely! I also got some lavender soaps with bits of dried flowers in them, so now the room smells of lavender.

Crafts are not my forte, but I like to have something to keep myself busy with, so I knit cloths from cotton. They are much better than the ordinary cloths you buy in the shop. I crocheted the towel a few years ago. It has been tucked away in a drawer, but I thought it fit in here.

The towel is hanging on this cool hook that I found in the back of a closet in the cellar. I thought it deserved better, so I put it here. In the same closet, I found several other nice hooks that I now use to hang mops and brushes on.

Hubby almost fainted when he found out I wanted to buy old fashioned clothes pegs for forty kroner (4 GBP) for a set of five, and regaled me with stories about how little they cost in his childhood when the gypsies travelled around and sold such things for next to nothing. That didn’t help me much, for we don’t have any peg whittling gypsies that come knocking on our door around here. But a phone call to England solved the problem. My in-laws are visiting at the moment and they brought along a lot of "dollypegs" as they call them. Just think, in England they only cost 90 pence for a pack of ten. I got four packs, so now I have plenty.

The small zinc tub is actually a herb pot, where you can write on the board what kind of herbs you are growing, but I think it is much more appropriate for keeping clothes pegs in. Incidentally, it comes from England too.

The wall clock was also bought in England for a fiver, when we visited a market in North Shields in the autumn. I think it is very sweet. The old-fashioned zinc lamp was a Christmas present from a friend some years ago.

I won the heart at a blog giveaway a while back. It is beautiful, but I have been struggling to find the right place to hang it. Finally it ended up on the wall here, where I can see and enjoy it every day. It matches the room’s colour nicely, and you have to try and make a room look pretty, even if it's just a laundry room, right? Perhaps it is even more important to decorate a utility room so that you can feel good about working there.

I had two old frames lying around and thought they could be used here, so I searched the net for some appropriate pictures. These two fit the bill perfectly!

 Now, it's not as though washing has become my favourite pastime since we finished the laundry room, but compared to previously, it's good, clean fun (pun intended).