At home with Jennie

“A practical utility room, at last!”

Jennie, Marcel and their two daughters Elly (13) and Irma (10) live with their two cats in a charming 1930s house near Malmö. When they bought it eight years ago, they saw there was great potential for creating a home spa and spacious utility room in the cellar. But the years passed and they put most focus on the other floors of the house, which meant solutions in the cellar, and utility room especially, were mainly preliminary.
Photos Fredrik Bjelkerud

Swipe across to see before and after

“We’d been sorting our dirty laundry on the cellar floor for years. And then taking all the clean clothes to the living room for sorting and folding. It was rather impractical and chaotic,” Marcel recalls.

“We bought several small racks and shelves without actually sitting down and planning the entire space,” Jennie adds. Looking back, I wonder what our priorities really were. But giving the kitchen, bedrooms and other living areas a makeover was far more enjoyable and simpler. If only we had known how much time and effort we would have saved if we had done this sooner,” she adds.

Planning is key

When Jennie and Marcel finally got round to the cellar, they began by making a laundry flow chart. Jennie wanted to keep the floor as uncluttered as possible to make for easy cleaning. So they chose a wall-mounted click-in system, where all the products hang on a track. They also gave the walls and ceiling a fresh coat of white paint and installed spotlights.

The first area of the room, directly left as you enter the cellar, was fitted with deep slide-out drawers that are labelled according to the temperature and type of wash. This makes it easy to sort several different washes in one go and see when a basket is full enough to pop a load of laundry in the machine.

Doing the laundry is far more enjoyable now!

Jennie

The drying racks fold down so you can use them as needed for both smaller and larger amounts of washing.

The tumble dryer and the drying racks offer two options for drying the clothes. Both are directly to the right of the washing machine.

Everyone has their own slide-out wire basket, making it easy for them to find and put away their clean clothes

Room for sorting and folding

Practical shelves have been mounted at the right height on the wall next to the drying racks to provide a handy surface for folding and sorting the clean laundry. Every member of the family has their own pull-out wire basket, marked with their name, underneath the shelves. When the laundry has been folded and their basket is full, they simply pull it out and carry it up to their wardrobe.

“Doing the laundry is far more enjoyable now!” Jennie exclaims. Of course, everyone still has the responsibility of taking their clean clothes up to their room, but the whole process is so much more efficient now. And everyone likes hanging out in the utility room, even the cats.

An ironing corner

The family has come up with a particularly smart feature... the ironing corner. A pull-out basket was fitted next to the ironing board for clothes that need ironing. Shirts and dresses that have been ironed are then hung on the front hanger which is above the basket.

Everyone likes hanging out in the utility room, even the cats

Jennie

Hooks and small movable boxes keep the cleaning items together and in place.

Cleaning items have their own place

The family also needed somewhere to store detergents, cleaning products, the vacuum cleaner and other cleaning equipment and items. So they installed a hook strip on one of the walls for extra shelves, boxes and hooks. It serves its purpose very successfully.

“The fact that each item has a place of its own makes it easier to put it back where it belongs after it has been used,” says Jennie.