A terracotta floor, a salmon counter, and two machines parked low on the ground with a drying rack underfoot. Everyone knows what a small laundry like this is supposed to do: keep the washer and dryer on the floor and slide a long counter over the top for folding.
She did the opposite. Both machines came up off the floor and into the cabinets at waist height, the drying rack moved to the ceiling, and the floor that used to hold all of it is now just clear, open tile.
The before-and-after that everyone double-taps hides the actual decision inside a room like the one @cindymead_ started with. Same window. Same footprint. Same machines, even. What changed is where everything sits in the air, not what got bought.
Most laundry makeovers you save are really just a nicer version of the same setup. This one moves the parts. Here is how a tired little laundry became a room she likes walking into, one decision at a time, and which of those decisions are worth stealing.
Getting the machines off the floor is the whole move
Start with the thing your back will thank you for. In the before, the washer and dryer sit flat on the floor, which means every load is a bend down and a reach in.
Both machines were lifted into the cabinet run so the doors sit at about waist height, which turns loading and unloading into a step you do standing up. That is the part that matters, and it has nothing to do with the finish. She had this done by her second trimester, so the no-bending payoff was real for her in a specific way, but the everyday version is simpler than that: anyone with a sore back, bad knees, or a basket they would rather not crouch over gets the same win. The drawers underneath swallow the storage the machines used to block.
There is one honest trade to name before you copy it. Lifting the machines side by side means you give up the long, unbroken counter people usually run across the top for folding. She traded that folding shelf for zero bending and a floor with nothing on it. If you fold straight onto a counter today, decide which one you would miss less, because you cannot easily have both in a space this size.
A short counter does more than a long one if you place it right
The folding counter did not vanish. It moved next to the machines instead of over them, wrapped into the corner by the window.
A small counter beside the machines, lit by the window, does the real folding and sorting work without forcing the appliances back down to the floor. People asked her if the little sink should have been bigger now that there is a baby in the house, and her answer is worth borrowing: she rinses and goes straight to the machine with a good stain remover instead of soaking, so the space a giant tub would eat just was not worth it to her. In a small laundry where every inch is spoken for, choosing the counter and sink you will actually use beats fitting the biggest ones you can.
The drying rack belongs on the ceiling, not the floor
Look at the before again and you will spot the part nobody photographs on purpose: a folding drying rack sitting open on the floor, eating the only clear path through the room.
That floor rack is the quiet space-killer in most laundries, and it’s the easiest thing to fix. The idea here is not the specific gadget, it’s the direction: send the drying up instead of out. A rack that lives against the ceiling and comes down only when you need it gives you the floor back every single day.
Move the drying rack overhead and the floor stops being a parking spot for wet clothes, which is what makes a tight room finally feel open. Hers lowers and lifts on a remote, which is the fancy version, but the plain version is older than that: a pulley airer or a simple ceiling-mounted rack does the same job for far less. The point your eye is reacting to is the cleared floor, not the motor.
Clear the floor and even a small laundry feels twice the size
Put the three moves together and the room reads completely differently. Nothing on the ground, machines up at hand height, drying tucked against the ceiling.
The square footage never changed, but emptying the floor is what makes the after feel like a bigger room than the before. The pretty parts do their job here, the travertine, the light oak, the brass, but they are sitting on top of a layout decision, not standing in for one. You could do this same lift-and-clear with plain white cabinets and a budget counter and still walk away with the open floor. If you are weighing up a tiny laundry that needs to work harder than it looks, this is the order to think in: move the machines and the drying first, choose the finishes second.
The thing to take from Cindy’s laundry is not a shopping list. It’s a question to ask before you spend a dollar on tile: what is actually sitting on your floor, and could it live somewhere else? Get the machines and the drying off the ground, and a small laundry stops feeling like a room you squeeze into and starts feeling like one you can stand up straight in.
Follow @cindymead_ for more of her DIY renovation. See the original laundry before and after here.
