Laundry Room Envy

For years, I've had laundry room envy.

I covet things like this system from Pottery Barn:

And I'm really envious of Ashley's laundry-room makeover at Domestic Imperfection:

These scenes make it look like doing the laundry could actually be fun!  (Well, let's not get carried away--Ashley has two toddlers, and at this stage of my life I might envy her laundry room but not her laundry).

But when you do your laundry in the basement (cellar would probably be a more accurate term) of a 1930s bungalow, it's tough to orchestrate an attractive setup.

The floor is concrete, artfully decorated with colors dripped from the many paint jobs I've done down there using, appropriately enough, an old plastic laundry basket as a "table" for whatever door or trim strips or piece of furniture I was working on at the time. The walls are damp cinder block, and Rubbermaid shelves store everything from light bulbs and Goof-Off to Doug's extensive collection of cheesecake pans (I think he has 35 or 40, counting everything from individual size to the standard 10-inch).

Since I hated the basement so much, I let it get cluttered and I had dirty clothes strewn about on the floor.

But last week I decided I had had enough.  I couldn't have a pretty laundry room, but I could at least have one that was cleaned up and somewhat organized.

So I bought this gem on Amazon for about $65:

I was so excited about my purchase that I ripped open the box as soon as it arrived, dumped all of the parts on the living room floor, and then looked pleadingly at Doug to help me sort it out.  He had it together in less than 10 minutes, and I was off to do battle with the basement.

It's still not pretty, but I do have nice modern machines:

And now my laundry is neatly sorted into Doug's, mine, and household:

I should have mentioned that this lovely basement is also my gym when the weather is too awful to walk or run outside or to drive to the UD gym.  So my motivation to make the area neat jumped a few notches during last week's snowstorm.  If I have to ride the damn exercise bike, I don't want to do it in the middle of a mess.  So as a side project, I organized a little wire shelf with painting clothes, old towels, and rolled-up sets of shorts, socks, and T-shirts for my riding pleasure:

With a John Grisham novel and my reading glasses, I'm off on a 10-mile ride to nowhere, and my laundry is organized.

But I'm still jealous of Ashley and anyone who has the luxury of ordering that laundry set from Pottery Barn.