Last week, I shared with my plan for our laundry room/closet combo. If you missed that, here’s another look at what I shared in that post. I had to use IKEA’s PAX planner for the closet side of the room.
And then I had to use the IKEA kitchen planner for the laundry room side of the room.
As usual, I got a lot of great feedback about that plan, some of which I’ve already incorporated into a revised plan. But I don’t remember anyone saying anything about the sink. But over the weekend, I started questioning why in the world I was putting a sink in this room.
I guess when I think “laundry room”, I automatically thin of a sink in that room. I think that Pinterest and Instagram have programmed that way since all of these new laundry rooms seem to have sinks in them. So when I started designing the laundry room side of this room, I just went into autopilot mode and put a sink in there.
But why? This past weekend, as I was reviewing the plans and making tweaks here and there based on your input, I starting wondering why in the world I thought I needed a sink in this room. If it’s not really needed, then that sink is taking up valuable storage space or valuable countertop space.
So I polled my Facebook page and asked if a sink in the laundry room is necessary. A lot of people said no, especially in a laundry room/closet space like I’m planning. But so many people said YES! When I asked what they use it for, here were the responses:
- to presoak an item of clothing,
- to wash hand washables,
- to wash out paint brushes,
- to bathe the dog,
- to clean up after gardening,
- to empty mop buckets,
- to clean the pet dishes,
- to clean yard tools,
- to clean large items like coolers,
- to clean shoes,
- to fill watering cans for watering house plants,
- to clean brass or silver,
- to wash vegetables from the garden,
- to clean/thaw seafood,
- to dye fabric,
- to apply hair color,
- to cut and arrange flowers,
- to soak oversized pans after entertaining,
- to thaw a turkey,
- to fill with ice and beverages when entertaining,
- to clean up after doing car repair,
I’m sure there were a few that I missed, but you get the point. And other than the first item on that list, the rest are things that I’d never, ever do in a laundry room that shares space with my clothes and shoes. And even the first item, presoaking an item of clothing, isn’t something I do. I can’t even remember the last time I presoaked an item of clothing before washing it. Maybe I’m doing laundry wrong. 😀
The most I ever do is spray an item of clothing with a stain removal spray, throw it in the washing machine, let it sit there for a bit while I go do something else, and then come back later to start the wash cycle. That’s as extensive as my prewash/presoak routine gets. And I’m way too short on time to buy clothes that have to be hand washed. If something can’t make it through a wash cycle, it doesn’t make it into my closet. Even the rare item that I buy without noticing that the label says “hand wash only” gets tossed into a delicate cycle, and I just hope for the best.
So all of that to say that I don’t need, and won’t be putting a sink on the laundry room side of our laundry room/closet combo. If I were creating a dedicated laundry room that would also be a utility room, and especially one that had direct access from the back yard, I’d absolutely add a sink. But in our case, it just seems odd.
I have been thinking about where I can add a utility sink to my studio, though. That was a suggestion that many of you made. I kind of wrote it off initially because my studio is going to be so close to the new kitchen. I considered adding a sink (or rather keeping a sink) in the area that will be the walk-through pantry that will connect the back doors of the studio to the kitchen (on the right side of the floor plan below).
That area is currently a bathroom, so it already has the necessary plumbing for a sink. But I kind of hate to take up so much of that space for a sink when it can be used for storage for things that I want easily accessible to the kitchen.
So now what I’m thinking is that when the door from the current breakfast room into the studio is closed up, I’m move my paint swatch cabinet to that wall. (It fits perfectly, as if it were made to go there.) I couldn’t find a recent picture of the whole area (and I won’t take any new full-view pictures until the room is completely finished, which will probably be this weekend), but you can see on this old picture what I’m talking about. So instead of it sitting where it is below, I’ll just move it to the wall to the left, covering the area where the door is right now. It’ll sit just to the right of my big framed landscape design.
And then that will leave me some room for a utility sink. And again, since the area just on the other side of that wall is currently a bathroom, that means that the plumbing is very easily accessible, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to put a sink right there.
But I think y’all are right. I definitely need a sink either in the studio or very near the studio. But I definitely don’t think I need a sink in the laundry room/closet combo. Just as long as I have a utility sink somewhere, I think that’s all I need, and the studio makes a whole lot more sense for that.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.