A True 'After' For House Calls

New & Improved - Fresh Ideas for the Laundry Room And Your Clothes

Each week in House Calls, we offer a complete room makeover by a local designer. We provide an illustration of the design and a list of home furnishings to complete the new look, but we never know whether the homeowner follows the recommendations.

That's why we were thrilled to hear from Michele Matton.

Matton originally contacted the Home section two years ago about the laundry room in her Millersville home, in Anne Arundel County. The space was not only small, she wrote, but inefficient. The 6-by-6-foot room, a pass-through between the kitchen and the garage, had swinging doors on each end that practically collided whenever they were opened. The washer and dryer stood side by side, taking up space. The room had harsh fluorescent lights; a bad linoleum floor; unattractive, awkwardly placed storage cabinets; and no utility sink.

The one bright spot for Matton was the laundry chute.

"I was in there one day and just got fed up," she says about her decision to e-mail House Calls. "And I was so positive you would pick me because it was such a good challenge."

As soon as we received Matton's letter and saw her sad space, we signed her up. Then we called Arlington designer Melissa Broffman to get her advice.

To participate in House Calls, homeowners send in photos, room dimensions and their vision about a troubled space. We pass that information to a designer. But the designer never speaks to the homeowner or sees the room in person.

When Broffman first saw the photos of the Matton laundry room, she thought, "Oh, my God. I felt her pain."

She wanted to create a soothing area for the Matton family -- Michele, husband Jeff and three children -- so her redesign included a sea of watery colors on the floor, a backsplash, appliances and cabinet knobs. To make the best use of the limited space, she went vertical, stacking full-size washer and dryer units and extending new cabinets to the ceiling. She suggested recessed ceiling lights and task lighting under the cabinets. For laundry prep, she recommended installing a countertop with a drawer. She also added a wall-mounted key cabinet and holder for brooms and mops. Her greatest space-saving solution: a pocket door in place of the swinging door to the kitchen.

"The pocket door just made sense," Broffman says. "Just one less intrusion into the space."

When Matton saw the drawing of Broffman's design in the newspaper, she was thrilled.

"I loved it," she says. "I thought it was perfect. It would maximize space and make it more inviting. I looked at the design and thought, 'We can do that.' "