30+ Small Laundry Room Ideas to Maximize Your Space

Laundry rooms can be both functional and stylish — even if space is limited. The best small laundry rooms use every inch of available space. These small laundry room ideas include hacks such as squeezing more utility out of floating shelves and fitting areas for folding clothes into tight spots.

While there are a number of drying racks to choose from, including some that hang from the ceiling, we love the ease of one that pulls down. If you hand wash a lot of your clothes or have delicate items that you don’t put in the dryer, a rack like this is definitely a smart investment.

Take a step back and assess your laundry room. Do you have any awkward gaps above or beside your washer and dryer? Take advantage of those and transform your space with custom cabinets and shelving. This small-but-mighty room from HGTV Dream Home 2024 features a custom lower cabinet and upper shelving unit that bridges the space between the appliances and wall for a polished look.

Contemporary freestanding drying racks are not ideal for small laundry rooms. Our advice? Take notes from your grandparents’ laundry room and install a wall-mounted wooden drying rack. This expandable rack extends from the wall and folds back when not in use, making it the perfect space-saving solution for your petite pad. Bonus: Classic wooden drying racks bring storied charm into any room.

If you’re looking for a contemporary, streamlined alternative to a freestanding drying rack, pull out your pen and have your notebook ready, friend. The designers at Chango and Co. make the most of this pint-sized laundry room with hidden drying rack drawers above the appliances. Each drawer slides out to reveal a classic wooden rack for hanging delicates and steaming out wrinkles and slips back into place as needed.

Make the most of the space you have with dual-purpose furniture. This roomy dog crate gives Fido a safe space to sleep while homeowners run errands. It also doubles as a functional workstation for folding clothes, organizing loads and tackling everyday stains. Create a similar crate on a smaller scale to suit your space and finally get that unsightly cage out of your kitchen or living room.

Another easy way to save space in your laundry room is to stack your washer and dryer on top of each other. This approach will help free up your floor plan and give you more room to get chores done.

Design is all in the details, and this little laundry room by Kristina Crestin is rich with unexpected ideas to copy for your own home. Check out the towel hook on the lower cabinets directly beside the sink. This tiny touch does not take up any of the limited counter space, while still providing a spot to dry hands between tasks.

Here's another neat trick: an empty drawer can be customized to hold an ironing board. Simply pull the piece out when you're ready to work, and then slide it back inside and out of the way after.

Leave the superfluous shelf styling to your living room bookcase. Take advantage of your floating shelves by storing your everyday utility essentials within reach above your workstation. Take notes from this dreamy space by Tim Barber, and paint your shelves the same color as your walls so that they blend into their surroundings.

Once your shelves are in place, try to get ahead of the mess by sorting your laundry supplies into baskets, crates and other containers. If you’d like things to look a bit more orderly, you can use one single type of basket or crate for all of your supplies. Here, classic woven baskets with integrated handles provide polished storage for cleaning supplies, while solid white household items, like dryer balls and paper towels, are displayed neatly on the shelves.

A pair of industrial rolling laundry baskets offer easy sink-side sorting in this sunny laundry room. Invest in a similar, durable rolling basket to create a breezy storage system for dark and light clothing that you can roll in and out as needed.

Here's how to take your laundry counter from chaotic to clean in a minute or less: Throw all your tabletop gear into a single serving tray. Grouping miscellaneous items into a tray frees up workspace, creates visual order and appears polished with almost no effort on your part.

Contrast is your best friend when it comes to finding the perfect laundry room storage baskets and bins. Look for vessels in colors and/or textures that contrast against your laundry room walls so that you can locate your stain treatment or detergent. Brian Patrick Flynn shows how it’s done in this punchy laundry room with a collection of earthy woven baskets paired with cotton candy-colored walls.

Most laundry detergents and fabric softeners come in bulky, oddly shaped containers, which means that they take up more counter space than necessary. Our advice? Ditch the plastic altogether and decant your liquids or powders into glass jars to streamline your storage. You could even use these to hold clothespins and extra linens.

Consider investing in custom cabinets to hide your washing machine and dryer if your laundry room is in a corner of your bathroom or kitchen. Not only will this create a streamlined look in the space by cutting out the clutter, but the cabinets will also serve as sound barriers against the noisy machines throughout the day.

Though small on space, this laundry room features two antique benches with coat hooks for hats and jackets, meaning your small laundry room corner now doubles as a mudroom.

Space-saving and stylish? You need this hack in your life. This door-mounted, coral metal basket shelf with a hexagon liner creates an energizing ironing station for this pint-sized laundry room. A pair of straps connect a matching, hexagon-clad ironing board to the peppy shelf overhead to complete the set.

Or, if you don't want to use an over-the-door rack for an ironing board, just use two coat hooks. This simple hack keeps a large ironing board up off the ground and flat against the wall.

Put your perimeters to work as in this airy and organized laundry room. A sleek built-in bar expands across the length of the room to offer ample space to fold, sort and treat stains without adding bulkiness to the design. On the other wall, a tension rod extends from above the window frame to the upper cabinet across the room to offer tons of space to hang delicates and treat garments between loads.

Create the illusion of a larger space by expanding your floating shelves across an entire wall of your laundry room. Want to make a major statement? Follow designer John McClain’s lead and add two. The shelves’ horizontal lines will visually expand the space and provide tons of extra storage for baskets, bins and laundry supplies.

Don't let the empty space beneath your floating shelves go to waste. Make the most of the vacant spot by adding a strip of wooden pegs to keep clothing hangers, miniature brooms and lint rollers within reach.

You can start by looking for storage solutions that were designed for closets. While the unit in the photo above works well for supplies, you could also use something like an over-the-door shoe organizer for small items. Even a few hooks would provide some extra room to hang laundry bags or dry delicates.

If your laundry area is a catch-all for bags, umbrellas and shoes, consider adding a built-in to an underutilized wall. This will provide ample storage and corral the clutter in your space.

Have an awkward nook in your laundry room that you don't know what to do with? Don't let that space go unused; instead, create a place your pet can enjoy. In this laundry room, the corner has been made into a cozy area for the family dog to rest and provide companionship while you're completing the household chores.

If you don’t have a door on your laundry room but would like to separate the space, consider installing a simple curtain rod and curtains. This is a great option if your washer/dryer set is somewhere more visible in your home. While curtains won’t provide much sound protection, they will keep your washer and dryer from being so conspicuous.

While pedestal drawers aren't an option for every model on the market, many newer units offer them as an add-on. They also raise up your front-loading units, making them easier to access. Many of the drawers feature sectioned storage areas that allow you to fit in a good amount of detergent, dryer sheets and other supplies.

A clothing rod might seem like a luxury, but even the tiniest laundry room can have one with some planning. For example, the space between two cabinets could be outfitted with a basic bar, giving you an extra place to hang T-shirts and sweaters.

If your laundry space truly is tiny, consider this: an all-in-one washer and dryer combo. This would allow you to have the best of both worlds without needing two bulky units.

There can be a lot of wasted space between the bottom of the cabinets and the countertops. Consider using this area for additional storage, like in this laundry room where extra wooden boxes are added to give more room for more laundry items.

This small laundry room features two sets of shelves above the folding table that provide for additional storage. The only problem? You may not be able to reach the top shelf. If you need more storage and opt for an extra shelf, don't stress about the vertical challenge. Just keep a small stool handy for whenever you need a boost.

There's a certain advantage to having side-by-side units: you can put a shelf over the top of them and create a folding station. If your space is really small, you might also consider mounting a short piece of a counter onto your wall and using that for folding clothes. If you’re handy, you could even create a station that folds down and back up when not in use.