Decorating & Design
The Lakehouse: Lynda Reeves On Creating A Functional & Beautiful Laundry Room
Updated on November 28, 2023
This is my story of designing our renovation of a century-old lakehouse in Ontario. Each month, I’ll offer a new chapter on the challenges and solutions, and a peek at our progress. You’ll be able to see the actual house come together on new episodes of our video series The Lakehouse.
If you’re been following this series in print and seen our videos, then you know that our lakehouse looks like a huge space. In fact, the pictures and videos are deceptive. It’s true that the house is very wide and the great room, with its soaring cathedral ceiling, makes it feel especially spacious. On the other hand, there is no basement. I don’t know about you, but the basement of my city house is where it all happens. It’s where we work out, do projects, store everything and — most importantly — do laundry.
Laundry is a thing with me, so finding a way to create a functional, beautiful laundry room in a small space was my challenge. I started with the list of must-haves: washer, dryer, big laundry sink, extra-wide ironing board and tank iron, drying racks for hand laundry, storage and the all-important mangle. I could actually fit all of that into my new mudroom, but then I wouldn’t have a mudroom. You see, I had already planned to have coat storage, a tall integrated freezer and a wine fridge in my mudroom, along with a bench and dog shower.
The first thing to go was the dog shower. Archie will have to be happy with the hand shower in my bathtub. That freed up a lot of space. Next, I needed to figure out how to make this laundry room so good-looking that it would double as the entrance to the back of our house.
For that I turned to Bloomsbury Fine Cabinetry. The company would build wardrobes with V-groove panelled doors, plus cabinets to house the new Sub-Zero freezer and wine fridge, and the undercounter cabinets for the sink wall. I toyed with the idea of open cubbies, baskets and hooks instead of closed closets — for about five minutes. As charming as those mudrooms are (when perfectly styled), they never stay that way for long. I wondered how I would mask the mess of laundry or fit in the laundry appliances I needed.
I turned to Miele for solutions. The company suggested its new extra-small, super-fast washer and dryer combo that have large inner chambers and will wash a normal load of laundry in as quickly as 20 minutes. It sounded too good to be true!
I ordered them and, then, the day after the room was closed in and painted, Michel pointed out that our laundry room didn’t have the usual hole for a dryer vent. I took a long look and said I was sure the hole was there, but someone had just drywalled over it. I mentioned it to our contractor and he laughed. He said he had read the specs, and did I know that there was such a thing as a ventless dryer? Apparently, these brand-new dryers connect to your sink to allow the condensation from drying to drain along with your faucet water. No vent required!
It’s been a while since I’ve bought a new washer. I had no idea that you put bottles of liquid soap and fabric softener into the washer’s chambers that last for six months or longer, and that these units are Wi-Fi-enabled! Why, I don’t know, but I don’t plan to connect to an app so that I can turn on my washer or dryer with my phone. I just want to do my laundry the old-fashioned way by choosing a cycle, pressing start and hearing the beep when it’s all done.
Bloomsbury is also making me a wall-mounted drying rack that pulls down and has dowels for laying sweaters to dry. My new Miele mangle has arrived and it’s even better-looking than the one I’ve been using for three decades in my city laundry room. It’s an amazing rotary iron that makes ironing bed sheets and table linens a snap. Plus, it’s fun and relaxing to sit down and feed your wrinkled, damp sheets into the roller and watch them come out perfectly smooth and dry.
The room is almost done. The reclaimed brick floor is so beautiful. Yesterday, the butcherblock counter went in, and soon the Brizo black and bronze faucet will arrive. The paint colors for the walls, cabinets and sink wall are soft, soothing shades of taupe and stone. They play off the old stone of the exposed chimney from the original house. We installed four iron coat hooks on the chimney, there will be three wall sconces and, under the window in the alcove, we’ll tuck an oak bench. I’m just waiting for the bronze cabinet hardware and the wood drying rack to arrive.
Now about that messy laundry… I’m thinking that a big woven basket inside one of those closets will do the trick of hiding stuff. After that, it’s just a mental reset. Repeat after me: “Laundry is beautiful, laundry is beautiful….”
House & Home April 2021