Budget-Friendly Laundry Closet Makeover

When we moved into our rental townhouse in North County San Diego, I made a mental list of everything wrong with it. It was a long list: old windows, flooring, unpainted walls, etc. But we rent from family, which means we cover the home expenses ourselves, and “co-sponsoring an extravaganza,” as I came to think of it, was not in the budget.

So, after painting the house’s walls, we decided to go for small wins first, starting with a laundry closet.

I saw this tiny nook more frequently than I wished. I had a newborn and a husband who together provided a triple load of laundry every day. Its fate was determined.

Laundry Closet Makeover: Before

The laundry closet lives behind a set of folding doors whose unevenness still hurts my eyes.

Behind those doors, we had a Whirlpool top loader and a Whirlpool dryer that, based on the serial number, had been manufactured in September 2002. Also, greasy metal shelving, crooked and uneven, which made everything standing on them have the same angle as the Tower of Pisa.

We replaced the washing machine and got rid of the dryer. I decided not to replace the dryer, because I grew up somewhere where drying clothes on the balcony in −22°F (−30°C) was completely normal. Making the California sun do the work for free, while burning zero electricity, is not something I’m capable of giving up on principle.

I don’t have the BEFORE picture; this is how the closet looked after I got rid of the dryer, dismantled the shelving, and patched the holes. Let me tell you – it already looked better!

Laundry closet makeover “before”.

DIY Planning and Process

If you think this sketch was made by a 10-year-old, I won’t blame you!

As you can see, we had a metal drain pan under our washer that was heavily rusted.

I wish I could replace it, but our heater is sitting on top of it, and I couldn’t bring myself to call contractors to help us change it. So, instead, I cleaned the pan as much as I could and primed it with Rusty Metal Primer. I gave it several days to dry and covered the area with cheap peel-and-stick floor tiles from Amazon.

Pipes

I removed all pipes connected to the dryer and insulated the holes with a foam sealant.

Walls

Painted in Sherwin-Williams blue.

Cabinets

We got IKEA SEKTION in two configurations: a base cabinet to anchor the countertop, a wall cabinet above. My husband installed them; I painted the cabinets with the same Sherwin-Williams blue. I used regular plywood to build a cabinet base.

Countertop

IKEA sells a wood countertop for $175, and it’s too long for our use case. I built mine out of plywood. Two sheets of sanded plywood, cut to the right length, glued together to reach the 1.5-inch thickness I needed, finished with Odie’s Oil. I used edge banding on the sides. It took two days to build because the glue needed to cure overnight.

Floating shelves

My original plan was one long, narrow custom shelf spanning the full width of the wall and two short shelves. I watched countless tutorials, and we even started building them. Then we got behind the drywall and found a pipe situation. We pivoted to shorter pre-built shelves from Amazon.

To unify the color of a DIY countertop and shelving, I got unfinished floating shelves and also applied Odie’s Oil. Now everything looks like it belongs together.

Light fixture

We got a cheap one from Wayfair.

Vacuum cleaner hose storage

Special hooks from Amazon work perfectly for our family. The stationary vacuum cleaner is stored on a lower shelf of a base cabinet.

Laundry Closet Transformation: After

Two plus months, a lot of nap-time construction windows, and almost $800 spent.

How Much Does a Laundry Closet Makeover Cost?

Full budget breakdown of how much I spent on this project:

A few notes:

I know that some expenses could have been avoided; for example, we could have gotten floating shelves from Facebook Marketplace, or, if we waited long enough, we probably would have found second-hand cabinets of the required size. Yet I decided to save our resources by not waiting. This is how we do it: we start, we think later 🙂

On another note, a lot of stuff can be reused later and has already been used. No regrets.

P.S. The folding doors are still there, still uneven. That’s a fight for another day.