Project laundry room: Under the stairs

My basement is so wonderful, honestly.  How many Southern Californians can even say the HAVE a basement? Not many, trust me.  Ours is used for laundry, pantry overflow, and lots of TOOLS!  My hubby's workshop is down there in that 300 square feet of wonderfulness.  

Before, table in the way and no color!

Well, as great as it is to have the basement, I spend a lot more time down there doing laundry than I'd like to.  So, while we had the last of our ceilings scraped recently - and while kids were in school and hubby was away at a conference - I found myself needing to be home but not IN my home!  

Here is what was going on in my music room while I was downstairs...

I decided the best thing would be to give my laundry room a little tweaking.  So, today and next Friday, I'll reveal the latest on my laundry room - I use "room" as a very loose term!

Hubby's workshop, overflow pantry {LT}, Paint/coffee pots/entertaining stuff pantry {RT}

The biggest thing to conquer was the fact that it was a mess in there.  It was dirty, dark, and smelly.  My hubby's side is not as organized as I would like it to be, but he wasn't around to ask him what this or that thinga-ma-bob was and whether or not I could toss it!  So I just cleaned it up the best I could!

Super hard to get under here, or see anything!

 We have an area under the basement stairs that is GREAT storage, but I need to get under there once or twice a month to pull out stuff.  It's not very often, but often enough that the folding table I had put in front of it was very inconvenient to move out and get around.  

Love Ikea!

So, I went to Ikea {thankfully just a few blocks away} and bought a new rolling, stainless steel cart.  I put it together {all by myself, thank you} and loved it right away!  I can now roll the cart in and out of place anytime I need to get under there. This cart will be used for folding clothes every time I do my laundry!

Love my cart.  That is my plastic milk jug rug!  Really!  It's cool!

Next, I wanted to hide the stuff under stairs.  I went through everything and organized it according to what I need most and the size.  I opened up the chest - it belonged to my hubby's grandpa - and I used the tools and war bullets in my new living room curio cabinet.  Pretty fun to find them!

Grandpa's old chest full of tools and memorabilia!

Something else I found...my husband's HUGE stash of baseball hats!  I think he has about a hundred in there....

He only has ONE head...many of these have never been worn! But, I just keep them because I know they are important to him...

I put something special under the stairs - just like my son's closet - I put the battery operated LED lights. They are on a remote control and I just drilled in the screws and popped them under the stairs.  I just have to press the remote and it lights up under the stairs!  

I LOVE these lights and how I can see so well now under there!

Anyway, I found these cheap shower curtains at Ikea and the wire curtain rod and hooks.  I hung them in front of the under stairs to hide the stuff AND to give some color down in this dreary basement!  The curtains match the spray paint I did for outside the basement window last year.

Simple and cheap to install! The perfect solution for that area!

I like to chat with the kids while I fold laundry, so I hung them so I could still do that!

Go HERE to see it finished up completely!

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