Everything I Bought to Make the Laundry Room of My Dreams

Welcome to Someone Buy This!, a monthly shopping column featuring the fun, the frivolous, and the practical from a very discerning shopper.

Earlier this year, my boyfriend and I bought an apartment that checked all our boxes: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and, shockingly for New York City, a laundry room. The move was a long, stressful process that made us realize just how much stuff we had accumulated over the last couple of years. As soon as we finished unpacking we jumped on our first project: maxing out storage in our weirdly shaped laundry room, a five-by-eight-foot space with freakishly tall ceilings. Here’s how we did it.

Our first and most important purchase was a stacked washer and ventless dryer. Because the laundry room is an interior space in a condo building, we aren’t set up for a vented system. I was honestly pretty worried about that. Would our clothes take forever to dry, or worse, come out all damp and musty? After a lot of research, both online and in showrooms, we landed on Miele’s T1 dryer and W1 washing machine. We’d never had in-unit laundry before so we were ecstatic! What used to be an all-day event instantly became a simple back-burner task.

The machines look compact, but they handle larger loads with no problem, including king-size bedding. The washer’s TwinDos system automatically dispenses detergent based on load size, fabric type, and color. I was initially hesitant about the machine handling the detergent but I’m a full TwinDos convert now. Not having to deal with sticky detergent bottles feels like a small luxury.

I started my first load within minutes of installation. I was eager to tackle our mountain of dirty clothes but even more eager to test the dryer. My only previous ventless dryer experience was in a European Airbnb that left me deeply unimpressed. Thankfully, the Miele T1 delivered. The first time I opened the dryer door, the clothes felt slightly damp, but once I shook each piece out, everything was perfectly dry. I’ve also come to love the "smoothing" setting, which revives already dry clothes that need a refresh.

Once we had the machines, we turned to paint. The laundry room’s biggest flaw is that it’s windowless, which makes it feel like a dark closet. The black tile floors and flat white paint weren’t helping. We wanted color, something bright enough to almost fake natural light, so we ordered samples from Backdrop. I was rooting for Stardust, but we compromised on Pablo Honey, a warm, sunny yellow. We painted the entire room, ceiling included, which made the space feel bigger.

For storage, we decided that adjustable chrome wire shelving was the fastest and most affordable way to get a custom setup. We ordered parts for two shelving units from Webstaurant Store: one with wide shelves, one with narrow, both eight feet tall to take advantage of the high ceilings. They now serve as our pantry, linen closet, and deep storage. These shelves look great and are super practical. We can adjust shelf heights as needed or even add more shelves in the future.

To keep the restaurant-kitchen theme going, we added a small stainless-steel prep table as a folding surface. Its open base happens to fit our two-chamber Joseph Joseph hamper perfectly.

When I need to squeeze storage out of a tight or awkward space, I always turn to Yamazaki. In this case, I added a magnetic shelf to the side of the dryer to hold stain removers and dryer balls. It’s simple, practical, and strong enough to stay put.

The crown jewel of the room is a ceiling-mounted drying rack from George and Willy. The space might be small, but the ceilings are nearly 12 feet high, so we knew we had to use that vertical real estate. Installation was tricky due to our poor planning. In hindsight we should have installed this before the shelves and all our stuff. We were left with very little room for the ladder needed to drill this thing into the ceiling! Regardless, it’s been a game changer. We can air-dry wool, silk, and other delicate fabrics without sacrificing an inch of floor space.

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