Watch This Woman Create the Perfect Hidden Laundry Room

Large, luxurious laundry rooms are the envy of homeowners and renters with small spaces. Sadly, not every home comes complete with a designated laundry room, and you may be among the people who have to make do with a tiny laundry space or a closet washer and dryer setup that isn’t a room at all.

So how do you make the most of it? You can (and should!) try some DIY home storage solutions, but until you see other laundry spaces, it may be hard to visualize the hidden potential of your own. For some, all a transformation takes is some out-of-the-box thinking, paint and a few materials to bring a laundry area from drab to modern glam.

How Did This Woman Hide Her Laundry Room?

In this TikTok video, shared by DIY and interior stylist Julie Sousa (@the_avantgarde), you can see a laundry room space metamorphose from boring and inconvenient to stylish and functional.

In the clip, Sousa introduces the laundry space, which isn’t a separate room, by saying the high-traffic area “cannot look like a dedicated laundry space because it’s out in the open.” The space is in a small alcove area of the house, bracketed by two doors—one of which contains a stacked washer and dryer hidden behind it. Before the makeover, the space didn’t resemble a laundry area and was nonfunctional because there were no shelves to fold or stack laundry on.

@the_avantgarde #laundry #diyproject #homedecor #smallspace #homediy ♬ Valerie (Version Revisited) – Mark Ronson

To solve the design dilemma, Sousa created a “camouflaged laundry nook.” The TikTok creator first transforms the space by painting a third of the back wall a dark gray and adding a sheet of slat wood paneling painted the same shade for texture. Next, Sousa painted the remaining two-thirds of the wall a khaki green. Then, to make the space serviceable, Sousa attached two gray shelves to the wall and added two laundry hampers that could pass for decorative cabinets underneath the shelves.

The finished look also includes a modern black-and-white painting with an overhead light fixture, moody under-shelf lighting and some vases with a splash of greenery. When the space is used for laundry, the shelves come in handy, but when laundry isn’t in progress, the alcove looks like a beautiful, decorative passageway.

For some similar smart storage options, try these laundry room organization tips.

Tips for Creating Your Own Hidden Laundry Room

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To hide your own laundry room, consider your space and design aesthetic first, then decide on your budget. If your budget is small, you may benefit from looking at these cheap laundry room updates you can DIY.

Here are some more tips for creating your own hidden laundry room:

• Hide extra shelves behind a door or use a decorative armoire or cabinet to hide your laundry items away.
• For front-loading washers and dryers on the floor, create a faux counter on top of the appliances and hang some half curtains in front of the appliances. That way, you can move the drapes to hide them when they’re not in use.
• If your appliances are in a room that isn’t a designated laundry area and are stacked on each other, try installing faux cabinet doors. Your appliances will stay hidden behind the cabinet facade whenever they aren’t in use.
• Install a collapsible ironing board in the wall, hidden behind a cabinet door.
• Opt for a decorative, sliding barn door system to conceal your small laundry space.
• Look for hampers that aren’t conspicuous in their purpose.
• Install decorative pocket doors to conceal a laundry space the size of a small closet.