Easy Laundry Room Fix

Do you have a room in your house that has that one thing that really bugs you and you wish you could change? I feel like we all do. Mine has been my laundry room, and the one thing that has really bugged me is this stupid hanging rack.

I think every laundry room needs a place to hang things (clothes that can't go in the dryer, your infants huge, cloth bathtub insert...) and the fact that we had this old clothes rack was convenient. I think I bought it when I was living in my apartment before meeting JT, and we used it to store out of season jackets and such in our basement at our old house. When we moved to Berryville and I didn't have a great place to hang things (the closest bathroom is on the other side of the house), this little rack seemed like a great solution. The thing is, though, that it takes up so much space in that room that I very quickly realized that I needed it gone. For such a simple piece of furniture, it really just can't get out of the way. It is on wheels, which has been very helpful when I need to move it, but there aren't really any good places to move it to. The rest of the mudroom is full of dog bowls and the backdoor and the basement steps (which we actually use all day long because of the wood stove now). The only really good place for it is where it sits in the picture - which is where is it 95% of the time - but it sits way out into the room because of the wide footprint and the baseboard that sits proud of the wall by another handful of inches.

I can't remember when I started plotting for a laundry room overhaul, but I know it was a while ago. The only problem with the laundry room is this rack, and I had elaborate plans to fix it. I wanted cabinets above the washer and dryer counter top for more storage, with a hanging bar spanning between the cabinets to hang things on so I could get rid of the rack. But then when I brought up my plans to JT, he mentioned that the hanging bar would be too far away for me to reach since the washer and dryer have to sit several feet off the back wall; the cabinets would also look strange because of the huge pass-through hole in the wall.

So the simple plan became much more complicated, and we talked about filling in that hole to make a solid wall, then hanging the cabinets and hanging bar. It was pushed way into the future because it had become too big to tackle anytime soon, and I figured I was stuck with the rack for a long time. But then it occurred to me one day that maybe there was a simpler solution. After a quick search for hanging drying racks, I discovered that WalMart sells a white one for a mere $13. Thirteen dollars, guys. I bought it, JT hung it, and fifteen minutes later the coat rack was hanging coats in the basement and my laundry room had doubled the available floor space.

Don't mind JT's face in the mirror, or Charlotte's sunflower bathtub. Look at that drying rack! And most importantly, look at all the open floor!

I walk through this room so many times a day, whether it's to do laundry or to fill the dog bowls at the sink, and I am completely honest when I say that the lack of the coat rack is life changing. I feel like I have a whole new laundry room, and it didn't require a single cabinet, sheet of drywall, or step stool to reach the hanging bar that's out of my reach. All it took was a $13 drying rack and all my problems were solved. WalMart for the win, folks.