How to Have a Laundry in Your Garage and Make It Work!
A comment we often get from customers is that their laundry is in a less-than-ideal location, such as the garage. Let’s be honest, we dislike laundry enough as it is, without trying to do it in a cold, cluttered garage!
Here are our tips to have your laundry in your garage but make it work well.
Most of our tips don’t involve money (bonus!) So, get reading and be on your way to a love relationship with your washing!
GET IT CLEAN & KEEP IT CLEAN! WE MEAN REALLY CLEAN.
If you don't have carpet in the garage then make sure your garage floor is swept or vacuumed often. To keep the area dust & dirt free. Mats are great underfoot but garage carpet..... even better!
Take as many items out of your garage that you can. Now, if you can’t take more than 3 steps in your garage without tripping over something, that’s a different issue. Its a real health and safety issue for your workplace (the laundry!) You’ll need to devote a weekend (or two) to getting rid of a few things. But we promise you: it feels so good to have things straight and clean. You’ll be ridiculously more productive in a place where you can actually walk around.
Ensure the area of the garage surrounding the laundry is as clutter free as possible. Sweep down all the webs, get rid of the spiders, giveaway any and everything that needs to go to a new home and don't feel sad about it.
You won't believe how much better you’ll feel just by completing this one step. No one like to work in a filthy work space!
ORGANISE YOUR LAUNDRY AREA.
After everything is nice and clean, you need to organise your laundry. You may have to spend a little bit of money here, but we all know a trip to Kmart is going to solve that (bins, new cleaning supplies, rolling storage carts/trolleys etc). If you already have overhead cabinets in the laundry then you're already sorted. Make sure everything in them is stored neatly, labelled is even better. If you want to get things onto the wall and don't have or don't like cupboards, take a look at Ace of Space. They have some awesome Slatwall storage DIY systems that you aren't expensive and you can install them yourself in a jiffy.
SPRUCE IT UP A LITTLE.
Just because your laundry is really a garage doesn’t mean it has to be dark and depressing. Can you paint the corner of your garage where your washer and dryer sit? Perhaps a nice light colour or even some wall decals just to cheer you up when you're getting stains out of clothes.
You know your own style. If you prefer things on the plainer side, then streamline. If you prefer things to be pretty with flair, search Pinterest for some fabulous laundry room inspiration and get busy. Be warned, once you start on Pinterest, 3 hours will have passed before you know it!
Make your laundry look like a place you actually want to be spending time in.
TEMPERATURE CONTROL.
It’s no fun doing washing in a steamy hot garage and its even worse going out to the garage when it’s freezing cold.
So how do you have to modify your garage to make it bearable in more extreme temperatures? Nearly all garages when built, have no ceiling insulation and only the internal wall between the garage and the house is insulated, making it a very cold space in winter and hot in the summer. You can easily have the garage ceiling and garage door insulated. These can both be done as a retrofit and aren't too pricy considering they make a drastic difference to the overall temperature.
The trick to this step is implementing your fix before the temperatures become unbearable Spring is the ideal time.