In March of 2021 we redid our garage laundry room. Since our house is so small (less than 1000 feet!), I needed to add some storage for soap and a laundry rack. I had the idea to build a pull-out laundry detergent storage between the washer and dryer.
At the time, I was tired from finishing the room so I never make a blog post for this tutorial. But I thought it was a great project and so functional that I thought I’d pull a tutorial together in case anyone wants to build something similar.
DIY Pull-out Laundry Detergent Storage
For this project. I had the vision of building a shelf on wheels between the washer and dryer. But when we elevated the washer and dryer, wheels on the bottom wouldn’t work because it would just fall off the ledge.
So it was back to the drawing board. We built the partition wall with the idea of storage so we had to do something (plus we really needed the storage). The easiest solution would have been to just add shelves and a curtain. But that would have a deep shelf and things would have got lost.
We had some drawer glides on hand from renovation our kitchen. Could those work we wondered? We came up with an idea and got to work.
SUPPLIES
For this project we used scrap wood we had on hand so I don’t have links to that. But I’ll show you how everything works and measurements
I spent $16 on a drawer pull and wood molding for this project. I had everything else on hand (wood, drawer glides, and paint). This was an affordable DIY since I had the materials. To buy everything would probably be $45 total.
step 1-
Here’s what we put together to try out our idea. The boards are 22″ high so that my laundry rack (that I use to air dry my dresses) will fit underneath.
We figured the shelf needs support. So we built two front legs from 2×6 boards and a long back support.
Here’s a view from the back. We aren’t advanced builders so I think a beginner could build this. The laundry detergent storage shelf is 9″ wide.
Once we decided this layout would work, we attached two drawer glides to the top of the shelf.
step 2
Next we the attached a piece of wood to the top of the drawer glides and put the shelf in place. Doesn’t it look nice?!
Here’s the shelf with detergent on the top and the folding rack on the bottom. It was nice to see that the big detergent bottle we use fits nicely on the shelf under what will be a countertop above the washer and dryer.
The top shelf is 9 1/4″ wide by 28 1/2″ deep. These measurements can easily be changed depending to the space availability in your laundry room.
step 3
And now, we used. L-shaped brackets to attach the front piece to the shelf.
We tested the size with the folding countertop and ending trimming it a bit from this picture. The front panel on the laundry detergent storage shelf ended up being 37 1/4″ high by 9 1/4″ wide.
step 4
Finally I added some wood trim to the front panel. I thought that would be a nice finishing touch.
Note, in the above photo you can see the middle section where we screwed the front panel onto the shelf and then filled the holes with wood filler.
Last, the whole shelf got a few coats of white paint.
Here’s how the shelf looks all finished before putting it in place.
I wanted to show a picture of the shelf extended so you can see how the drawer glides work with the shelf on the lower support.
after
And here is how the shelf looks in place. Simple, elegant- I’m so happy with how it came together!
Here’s an angle that shows the shelf open. It’s a little strange looking that the bottom doesn’t come to, but it is so functional! The laundry rack pulls out from the bottom. And the laundry detergent is right where it’s needed on top. Plus, writing this almost a year later means that I can report that it’s still working great!
We keep bleach, lots of different detergent (I have everything to strip laundry- which means a few types of soap), and bags to wash my delicates in. It’s plenty of storage! I LOVE this shelf and hope that this tutorial will help someone make a similar storage shelf!
p.s. if you’re wondering about anything with this project, I have a laundry room blog post with all the sources, links to all the blog posts, and a video walk through of the space.
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