laundry
Multipurpose. If you have the extra space, a laundry room is great for incorporating other functions, such as craft areas, work stations, message centers and more. That way you can double up on your productivity during a busy work and laundry day. This laundry room features a multiuse island for folding and gift-wrapping, with drawers, shelves and an open area for leg and knee space or a rolling laundry cart.
Air-dry. Even with ventilation, laundry rooms can get pretty stuffy. This San Francisco space gets around that with a Dutch door to let in breezes and views. While this room does include a dryer, taking some pieces out early to air-dry saves energy and provides a natural freshness that dryer sheets can’t quite copy.
Keep zippered items separate from lightweight summer pieces. Zippers and other hardware can cause abrasions and tears in more delicate fabrics. Extend the life of your lightest summer clothes by washing these items separately. Sorting clothes this way can take the place of sorting the traditional lights and darks, with the exception of items with dyes that may bleed (wash these on their own).
Dedicate a spot to hand-wash. Swimsuits and other delicate items will last far longer if they are treated gently. If you have a sink in the laundry room to wash delicates, great; if not, no worries. Collect hand-wash items in a plastic dish pan or tub and tote it to the nearest sink when you’re ready to wash. With either setup, be sure to store mild laundry soap and a drying rack nearby.
A mix of tiles line the wall behind the folding station. They help blend the new laundry room into the rest of the home, which is Spanish-style and has not been renovated. The custom blue-and-white tiles surround the window and continue down onto the side of the folding area. The rest of the tiled space is covered in a gray-and-white pattern. “The gray was a nice complement to the other tile and wasn’t going to fight with the blue or styles in other rooms of the home,” Stein says. She worked with the vendor to get a custom blue for the tiles around the window. The sample that was in the store was brighter than what she envisioned for the space. “We had to wait for the custom colors, and the client really didn’t want to wait any longer,” Stein says. “In the end, it was worth the wait to have them made.”
Cabinetmaker U.S. Cabinet Depot debuted a new Cinder color at the show — a warm brown-gray (shown in this photo) that was popular with visitors to the company’s KBIS booth. In person, the cabinets look like a blend of charcoal and brown.
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