Small Laundry Room Ideas That Worked in a 5x8 Closet: Cabinets With Doors, a Counter, Real Light

The small laundry room ideas that changed ours were four, in the order they mattered: tall cabinets with doors instead of wire shelving, so the room looks clean when it isn't; a warm ceiling fixture and two sconces at the sink instead of one bare bulb; a counter over the machines for folding; and a warm white paint that connected the room to the rest of the house. Our laundry room is a 5 by 8 closet off the kitchen of a 1964 ranch, and for four years it had a bare bulb, builder-white walls, wire shelving from 1987 and a floor drain I tried not to think about. I averted my eyes for four years. Then I spent about $1,100 and three weekends on it, and it's now where I go to listen to podcasts while doing something mindlessly productive. This post is the room before, the cabinets and why doors beat shelves, the folding counter, the lighting, the paint, the drying rod and the hamper system, the floor and the drain, the sink, the door, what small laundry rooms don't need, what it cost, and what changed about how much laundry actually gets done.

The room before, for context

Five feet by eight, a washer and dryer side by side on the long wall with 6 inches between them where socks went to die, wire shelves above holding detergent, a broken fan, paint cans and a box of light bulbs, a utility sink in the corner with a bare bulb over it, and the room's own bare bulb in the middle of the ceiling on a pull chain. It worked. It was the ugliest room in the house by a distance, and the reason laundry was a chore was partly that the room told you it was.

Tall cabinets with doors: the biggest single change

Two tall storage cabinets, 24 inches wide and 84 tall, replaced the wire shelving on the wall opposite the machines, and the room went from chaos to order the afternoon they went up. Supplies behind doors mean the room can look clean even when it technically isn't, which in a laundry room is most of the time. Inside: detergent and the cleaning supplies on the middle shelves, the iron and the vacuum in the tall section with the shelves removed, light bulbs and the paint cans on top, the shoe polish and the sewing kit at the bottom. The doors are plain white shaker to match the kitchen next door, and the cabinets are stock kitchen pantry units from the same range, $360 for the pair, which is the trick: laundry cabinets cost double for the word. Anchored to the wall with the straps, because the wall is plaster and the child is nine.

The folding counter over the machines

A butcher block counter, 25 inches deep, spanning both machines and the 6-inch gap between them, sitting on cleats on the back and side walls so it floats at 37 inches. It closed the sock gap, gave me a folding surface, and made the machines look built in. Front-loaders are required for this; ours were, luckily. The counter was $140 as an offcut from the kitchen counter supplier, oiled twice, and it's the surface I spend the most time at in the room. If your machines are top-loaders, a counter that hinges up or a rolling cart between the machines is the alternative, and neither is as good.

The lighting

The bare bulb in the middle became a flush mount with a linen-look shade and a 3000K bulb, on a switch by the door instead of a pull chain, and the bare bulb over the sink became two small wall sconces flanking the sink at 66 inches with 3000K bulbs, on their own switch. The room is now bright enough to see whether the sock is navy or black, which I hadn't realized was a problem until it wasn't, and warm enough that it feels like part of the house. 3000K, not 4000K, because 4000K in a small white room is a clinic, and not 2700K, because a laundry room is for seeing. About 1,200 lumens total for 40 square feet, which is more per foot than any room but the kitchen, and the only room in the house with no dimmer.

The paint

Warm white, the same one as the hall, so the laundry room stopped being a different building. Builder white in a room with one bulb is grey; the same room in a warm white with the new lights is a room. The ceiling too, and the door, and the trim, all one color, because in a 40-square-foot room trim in a different color is a lot of lines. Two coats, one Saturday, $45, and it was the change people notice first even though it was the cheapest.

The drying rod and the hamper system

A closet rod under the cabinets' bottom shelf, spanning 36 inches, for the things that hang to dry, which in this house is a third of the laundry. It replaced a folding rack that lived in the bathtub. Three hampers in a low open cabinet under the counter's overhang: whites, darks, and my daughter's, which she is responsible for and mostly is. Sorting at the source in a 5 by 8 room means the floor never has a pile on it, and the floor is the difference between a laundry room and a laundry closet.

The floor and the drain

Vinyl plank over the concrete, in a warm grey, laid in an afternoon around the drain with a ring cut for it, and a new stainless drain cover that looks like a decision rather than a hole. The drain is still there and I still don't think about it, and now that's because it's a neat circle in a floor that matches the hall rather than a crater in concrete. Waterproof flooring is the one place a laundry room shouldn't compromise: the washer will leak once in its life, and vinyl plank is the floor that survives it.

The sink

The utility sink stayed, because a deep sink is the most useful thing in a laundry room and replacing it was $600 I didn't have. What changed: a new faucet in brushed nickel with a pull-down sprayer, $85, so the sink is the place the muddy soccer things get rinsed, and a small shelf above it for the stain spray and a brush. A skirt on the sink in the same warm white fabric as the curtain, which hides the pipes and the bucket under it. The two sconces over it are what made it a sink and not a trough.

The door

The laundry door opens off the kitchen and used to be a plain hollow door that was always open because the room was too ugly to close the door on with any confidence it would open again. It's now a glass-panel door with frosted glass, so light comes through and the room reads as a room; a pocket door or a barn door is the alternative if the swing is in the way, and in a 5-foot room the swing usually is. The door is closed now, most of the time, which is the surest sign a laundry room has been fixed.

The layout in 40 square feet, in inches

Machines side by side on the 8-foot wall, 54 inches of machines plus the 6-inch gap, leaving 42 inches for the sink in the corner. Cabinets on the opposite wall, 48 inches of them, leaving 12 inches to the door frame. Between the two walls, 36 inches of floor, which is one person and a basket. The counter over the machines at 37 inches, the rod under the cabinets at 68, the sconces at 66, the hampers under the counter's front edge. There is no wasted inch and no inch that's crowded, and the reason is that everything is on the two long walls and nothing is on the floor. A 5 by 8 laundry room is a corridor with machines in it; treat both walls as storage and the middle as a path.

Sound, heat and the humidity

A washer on concrete in a closet next to the kitchen is loud, and a rubber anti-vibration mat under each machine, $30 the pair, took the spin cycle from a conversation-stopper to a hum. The dryer vent was replaced with rigid metal duct instead of the foil accordion, which is the thing that makes a laundry room hot and lint-filled and is a fire risk besides; $40 and an hour. A louvered panel in the new door, above the frosted glass, lets the room breathe, and the paint is a kitchen-and-bath one that tolerates the humidity. None of this shows and all of it is why the room stays pleasant with the door closed.

The weekend plan, if you have one

Saturday morning: empty the room into the hall, paint. Saturday afternoon: cabinets up, rod under. Sunday morning: counter on the cleats, hampers under. Sunday afternoon: flush mount and sconces, if the wiring's there, or a plug-in sconce over the sink if it isn't. The floor and the door were the second and third weekends, and the room was already fixed after the first. If you only have a Saturday, paint and the cabinets, in that order, and stop.

Small laundry room ideas I didn't need

A pull-out ironing board, because the counter is the ironing board with a mat on it. A pedestal under the machines, because the counter over them does more. A pull-out hamper in a cabinet, because three open hampers are faster. Wallpaper, which in a room with a washer's humidity peels in two years. Open shelves styled with matching jars, which are the wire shelves in a costume. And a second sink or a dog wash, which is a thing people put in laundry rooms in magazines and which would have taken the whole room.

Lighting notes, since it's what this blog is about

Flush mount at 3000K, 800 lumens, on a real switch. Two sconces at the sink, 3000K, 400 lumens each, at 66 inches so the light lands in the basin and not in your eyes. A stick-on motion light inside each tall cabinet, because a dark cabinet is a junk shelf. No dimmer anywhere, which makes this the one room in the house that breaks the rule in my flush mount post; a laundry room is for seeing, and the sconce placement rules still apply at the sink even when the point is a stain.

What it cost

Two tall cabinets, $360. The counter, $140, plus $20 of cleats and oil. The flush mount and two sconces with bulbs, $190. The switch to replace the pull chain, with the electrician's hour, $110. Paint, $45. The drying rod, $18. Three hampers, $60. Vinyl plank and the drain cover, $95. The faucet, $85. The door, $160. About $1,280 over three weekends for a 40-square-foot room that had been ignored for four years, and the cabinets and the light were $660 of it and the part that did the work.

In one paragraph

Cabinets with doors, a counter over front-loaders, a warm light on a switch and two at the sink, warm white paint, a rod for the hang-dry things, three hampers off the floor, waterproof plank, a door with glass. About $1,300 and three weekends for a 5 by 8 closet, and the cabinets and the light first if you only have one Saturday.

What changed, besides the room

Laundry gets done. Not because I like it more, but because the room no longer punishes me for going in, and a load that used to wait until the hamper overflowed now goes in when I walk past with a podcast. My daughter folds her own on the counter, which she never did on the bed. And the door is closed, the room is a room, and the wire shelving from 1987 is at the metal recycler, where it should have gone before we bought the house. A laundry room is 40 square feet you use every second day; it deserved a weekend four years earlier than it got one.