DIY Sarah

Craft, Decor, Art, Garden, and Dessert

Master Closet & Laundry – Getting close!

Last summer, I developed a detailed plan for the master closet/laundry.  See the post here:

Master Closet and Laundry Design July 3, 2012sv

I really like the design and I’m even more convinced of its utility.  The idea is to put raised front-loading washer/dryer in the corner of the room and use 3 Ikea Expedit shelves as the bones of the shelving units.

The wall with the window and the laundry units would be situated like this:

with the adjacent wall looking something like this:

Now that drywall is getting close, it’s time for me to start thinking about the details of the space.  For instance, the ends of the purple clothes rods in the above picture.  Should I have a vertical piece of lumber to frame in the space?  Or should I have a clothes rod bracket that just free-floats?

Part of me thinks I should leave it open to try to prevent a cramped feel. But then most of my dream closet images have the clothes very contained:

Some of the other decisions I have to make are more fun. Like, paint color!

Nicole over at Making it Lovely shares my affinity for pink. See her pink Christmas tree here! Awesome right? These are some of her favorite pink paint colors.

I’m loving the Old Fashioned Pink and Pink Innocence. I love the idea of the Milk Glass Pink from Martha Stewart as well but I think it will be too light. Awesome name though.

Everyone looks better in pink! So it makes sense for a dressing room.

For light fixtures, I’m thinking a white chandelier with a pink fabric chain cover. We situated the light in the center of the room with the expectation that we would need to swag it to the natural center of the room. I’ll probably be using one of the ugly brass ones from downstairs spray painted white. I can always upgrade if I find something truly awesome. I’m actually really looking forward to getting my paint on as soon as the weather warms up.

I have plans for 3 sets of spotlights for illuminating the wall of clothes and the laundry area. We got these cheapy ones from ikea. They are white and should do the trick just fine.

I had mentioned that I wanted a big mirror. I’m thinking really big. Big and functional. I’m also looking for some way to organize my jewelry. Either a wall mount jewelry armoire or something more creative. I have A LOT of jewelry and I’m looking forward to having it out and easy to access so I will start to wear it!

I’ve got a couple options for jewelry storage.

or even

or I could go super glam and mirrored!

and if I suddenly inherited a priceless collection of jewels, I could buy this Italian Jewel safe option.


Above the washer/dryer I had planned on a full-depth cabinet. Something like this:

That’s going to be really deep though and I think maybe some kind of drying rack would be more useful. It’s going to be hard to access in any case but those cabinets would be 2 feet deep. I’ve got to give it more thought. I’m planning on using the space for a while before I add some of those finishing touches. It’s hard to know just what I will need now.

OO, the shallower cabinets don’t look bad:

Traditional Laundry Room design by Los Angeles Interior Designer Charmean Neithart Interiors, LLC.

Same goes for the ceder closet inside the closet. I know I need some hanging space for coats and furs etc but I’ve also got scarves, socks, gloves etc that need to be stored. I probably need some sort of drawer thing but I’m going to just leave it as is until I figure out just what I need. It may be that all I need is an over-the door shelf thing or something. We’ll just have to see.

Initially it will look like this:

Eventually, we’ll mold it to our needs. with shelving for sweaters and some creative sock storage.

That’s the plan for now.  What do you think?  I’d love some input.

Sarah