how many hours a week do you think you spend in your laundry room? i’m in there so often i might as well call it my office. i am on a constant quest to discover some magical time-saving laundry secret. the bad news? i haven’t found the secret {though it has been the topic of many conversations}. the good news? i channeled my efforts into finding a budget-friendly solution to our laundry room clutter. maybe now i won’t mind spending so many hours at the office.

until today, my laundry room looked like this. i’d like to think THIS is part of the reason laundry never gets checked off on the to-do list. insert eye rolling emoji and another emoji that is taking a big, deep breath. clutter makes me anxious.

don’t get me wrong. i am so so thrilled to even have a laundry room. it is right off our garage, which is perfect. but as we settled into this house, i realized one major design flaw. there were four doors in this small space. four! one door opening IN from the garage. one door opening IN from the house. and two sliding closet doors that were always covered by the doors opening IN. basically to get anywhere, you had to move a door.

if you’re a mom, you know it’s hard enough to get kids to put coats, shoes, backpacks and really anything away. even when it’s easy. our laundry room was not easy. add in hanging racks and laundry baskets on the floor. and don’t get me started on the shoe bin. are shoe bins invisible to everyone except moms?!?!

as a result of the hard to reach closet, this was our coat rack. fancy, huh? there are five hooks under there on our actual coat rack. they are not big enough to hold adult jackets, nor is there ever any room because this is also our backpack rack. the laundry room closet is supposed to be for coats, but five- and three-year-olds don’t hang coats on hangers.

the laundry-shoe-backpack-coat situation was a daily inconvenience but sometimes that’s just the way it is. i spent the last three years happily {ok, sometimes grumpily} dreaming up budget-friendly laundry room ideas for the far distant future.

recently, i started to mention the plans in my head to my husband. i never thought he’d go for it, nor did i think we had the budget. when we bought our house, we knew we’d need to invest in some organizing and storage solutions. but i figured the laundry room was still down the line. as it turns out, the laundry room clutter bothered him too. he told me to get some quotes, make some plans, and look into it.

my first stop was pinterest. here is a link to my laundry room inspiration board {pictured above}. our former neighbor adam is our go-to for any of my crazy house ideas. i look at something and think, hmmmmm, if only….then i spend at least a year thinking about it, dreaming up ideas, talking to friends, and looking at pinterest. eventually maybe i call adam, explain my plans, let him know how i can help {any help you are willing to offer always saves money!}, and he tells me whether my ideas are crazy or doable.

if you don’t already have someone capable of the work you’d like to do, consider posting on your neighborhood facebook page or talking with other neighbors. you’d be amazed at the help people are willing to offer.

if you aren’t in a neighborhood, ask at school or church. someone always knows a guy. i’ve called our realtor numerous times to ask for painting, flooring, and now drywall recommendations. his recommendations are always the most budget-friendly of anyone i ask.

hint :: always always get multiple quotes. this takes extra time but always saves money. even saving $50 is a big deal because it all adds up. this is sometimes hard for me because i don’t like calling someone back to tell them we went with someone else, especially if it is someone we know. but the bottom line is it’s your money, and if you want to save and get your projects done, multiple quotes makes sense.

before day 1, i met with adam and explained my vision which included ::

knocking out the closet and surrounding wall
patching the walls and ceiling
painting the walls, ceiling, and baseboards
new flooring
a bench and built-ins in place of the closet
bins to fit the built-ins
cabinet storage and open shelves above the washer/dryer
as many hooks as we can fit along the main wall
a new sliding door on a track going into the house

adam told me it was doable. he named his price for labor. i know, from working with him in the past, that his number is always lowest. it pays to work with friends but even if you’re a new client, he is very reasonable. i talked it over with my husband and we determined it was an investment worth making.

and that brings me to…

budget-friendly laundry room

day 1

day 1 tasks

{1} drywall quotes

{2} clear everything out of the laundry room

{3} take down the wire shelves and pegboard

day 1 {task 1}

drywall quotes. when adam gave us his labor quote, he also gave us a drywall quote from his drywall guy. it was $1100! $550 for demo {knocking out the closet and surrounding walls} and clean up, and $550 for wall and ceiling patching. that was WAY higher than i expected, but i wasn’t sure if i was just really wrong about how much these things cost.

i decided to get some more quotes. i called our realtor who sold us this house and he recommended two guys he works with regularly. before day 1, i called them and set up appointments. the first one came today and quoted me at $250. yes, $850 cheaper than the first quote! since he was so much less, i asked him how much he would charge to paint the ceiling for me {something i was dreading}. he said $80! so for $330 i scheduled the demo and patching for day 3. i didn’t even need the second quote since i knew there was little chance it would be cheaper than $330.

day 1 {task 2}

everything out. tonight, i put everything from our laundry room down in our basement. yes. this created a huge mess that i will eventually go through when we move {some of} it back in. it will not be convenient because i will have to run downstairs for hats, gloves, goldfish, the umbrella, and all sorts of other things that are usually closer. but it will be worth it in the end!

day 1 {task 3}

remove shelves and pegboard. my husband and i were able to take down most of the existing shelving in this space, but there were a few anchors i couldn’t get out of the wall. i plan to ask the drywall team to take care of this and patch all the holes when they come back in a couple days.

today we saved about $1000 by going with a friend for the construction and $850 by shopping around for drywall quotes. with an extra $1,850 in my pocket, i consider that a wrap for budget-friendly laundry room renovation, day one. {interested in the next steps in our process? click here.}

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