My Laundry Room Redo

My laundry room has been my least favorite place in my house.  It is small and not too organized.  And do I like things organized!!!!!  My parents found this cabinet for the laundry and helped me install it several years ago.  It gave me more storage, but it still left a lot to be desired.  

In December, my sweet sister came and encouraged me to build shelves.  The more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea.  After spending some time on Pinterest (of course!!) I found some ideas.  Here is what my laundry room looked like before I started.  

Some how I got the cabinet down and out of the room with out killing myself-that thing is super heavy!!  I measured the floor to ceiling height and cut the boards to support the shelves.  

I screwed the boards onto the walls and then measured the middle boards to fit.  Since this is just for my pantry, I only sanded the boards a bit and smoothed the edges on the front.  I built each shelf for maximum efficiency.  I only wanted 1 inch or less between the tallest item I would store there and the next shelf.  The bottom shelves I made 12 inches wide, but the upper ones I had only 6 inches wide.  I wanted to easily be able to get to all the items without digging through loads of things. 

I was planning on building cleats on the back wall to support each of the shelves.  But I couldn't find the studs easily.  (nursing school didn't instruct me in how to do this!)  When I asked my hubby about finding the studs, he got quite nervous.  I found out all the power for the house runs through this wall and I had a good chance of electrocuting myself if I kept going.  So I changed my design to one that included much less drilling into the back wall.  I just make shelf supports that I attached to each other from the top of the shelf.  This was easy and will support the weight of any item on it quiet well.

 I ended up spending about $75 for this entire project.  It took me 3 hours to cut, sand and install the shelves.  And another hour to organize and admire my work.  :)

Got them all loaded up with my pantry stuff and love it!!  Things are so much easier to find now.   I wish I had done this earlier-like 10 years ago!!!  

Cleaned my washer and dryer and window sill off and overall made it look so much better.  I am not ashamed to have my door open to my laundry any more.

I had to move where I kept my broom and mop. So I just took an extra piece of wood I had and popped it up on the wall.  A few simple screws in it and there you have it!  Super easy and functional.