A pocket door and custom cabinets make the room efficient.
Previously, the laundry room’s door swung all the way open, so to make it easier to load, unload, hang, and fold, in the space, Carol and Alessandro replaced it with a pocket door. “This was a major, time-consuming project, but it made the biggest difference in the space,” Carol says. It required removing the drywall and studs to install the pocket door hardware and door itself.
In fact, the whole makeover required demolition. Carol and Alessandro “started with a major demolition, removing old tiles, wall cabinets, sink, and anything in our way,” Carol recalls. They added new cabinetry that stretches all the way up to the ceiling on the left side of the laundry room.
“We wanted to make the cabinets flush to the appliances, and we couldn’t find wall cabinets that were deep enough,” Carol says. “For this DIY, we bought multiple sheets of plywood, cut each side according to our measurements, and used a Kreg pocket hole jig in order to put the cabinet together.” By building the cabinets themselves, Carol and Alessandro saved about $1,800, she estimates. They used IKEA doors and trimmed them down to complete the look. Their cabinet plus floating shelf lumber total was $450.
