The Luxe Laundress

Found this post gathering dust in the depths of my stash of blog entries. It's from before we made the move to The House....

Today as the jungle of moving boxes encroaches upon my sanity, I find myself escaping to a wonderful fantasy world: My future master suite and strangely enough, laundry room. You see, in a week and a half we are moving out of our crowded townhome and into a single family dwelling. We are doubling our square footage and as a result, the size of our master bedroom.

The new suite of dreams includes, but is not limited to: a large walk-in closet, a dressing area, a four piece ensuite including soaker tub, space for a reading nook and a yoga mat and pleasingly, a general feeling of spaciousness. But of all the things our master bedroom has, I am most excited about what it hasn't: laundry.

You see, for the past five years I have lived with laundry in my bedroom. Our townhome had what can only be described as a laundry closet. This is a space-saving torture device invented by some developer out there who is either a) a nudist who generates no laundry, b) wears exclusively dry-clean only garments, or c) and most likely the case, a wealthy middle aged male who does not live in a townhome and has never thrown a load in or much less seen the laundry room in his sprawling McMansion perched Frank Gehry-like on a cliff overlooking a stunning vista....but I digress.

Anyway, for the rest of us, a very basic stacking washer and dryer wedged into a narrow closet of an even more narrow hallway covered by a bifold door seemed like a great cost cutter. Since the washrooms and children's rooms are too tight for even a hamper, guess where the laundry ended up? That's right! This entire time my boudoir multitasked as the familial laundromat. The hamper, iron, ironing board and drying rack have all taken up residence in my sanctuary and I can't tell you how miserable this has been.

When company came a-calling, or at least company whom I knew would appreciate a home tour, I would have to shove all the laundry accoutrements into our master bathroom shower and close the door on the situation. This was disheartening, especially given the fact that my hubby did some really charming work in our bathroom with beadboard, crown moulding, cottagey hardware and vintage-chic mirrors and medicine cabinet. Sad.

But on the horizon is a master bedroom and ensuite that is free of ironing boards and the like. Truth be told, it's not as though I am ashamed of the laundry gear. It was just the glaringly obvious fact of its wrongful placement. "And here we have our master bedroom, oops! Careful not to trip on the drying rack, you wouldn't want to get tangled up in my unmentionables..."

While all the rooms will need remodeling at some point, I am very excited at the prospect of a real, true laundry room. I actually take some pleasure in laundry and fancy myself a bit of a domestic diva in this particular division of domesticity. (I apologize for that random attack of alliteration, it just happened.) Anyway, I like that while I have no control over the many crazy events that unfold in family life, I can control laundry. I can get a stain out of damn near anything and uniformly folded towels and bedlinens fill me with a Napoleonesque sense of power. It's a small thing but moms must savour these moments.

In the new house I shall eschew the condo-sized stacker in favour of something much more substantial. Something with the words "heavy duty" or "commercial grade" in the name. And then all around my glorious new workhorses will be beauty! Crisp white paint, beautiful slate floors, charming storage baskets and (gasp!), a built-in custom drying rack, even a closet in which to store the ironing board, iron, hampers and my sewing machine. Just imagine shelves with beautiful bottles and jars to contain the various lotions and potions used for stain removal, whitening, brightening and the scenting one's linens. Oh, and the always useful utility sink with a shelf above for vases, floral frogs and other flower arranging delights! I am nearly breathless with excitement.

As the great Mies van der Rohe once said, "God is in the details." And a luxe laundry room is nothing short of heaven.