Sadie & Storage

We're still in the laundry room today.

I lived on a dairy farm in southern Wisconsin for the first 12 years of my life. We milked black & white cows - Holsteins. 

I guess I shouldn't say "we," as I wasn't the one doing the milking! We had too many cows to try to name them all, but we did name a few of our favorites. My favorite was Sadie. 

Sadie was so gentle that we could sit on her back when she was in her stanchion in the barn, and she didn't even mind. Well, if she did mind, she didn't show it. Steve bought me this cow down in Saginaw and had the sign made for it. He didn't want me to ever feel homesick for Wisconsin. I guess it worked!

Sadie's currently propped up on the shelf in the laundry room. I have a plan for the space on the wall to her right, so she'll be moving at some point in the near future, but she won't go far. I guess you can take the girl off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the girl - not completely anyway. I have a tractor, too, but that's in another room.

I had originally planned to have cabinets above the washer and dryer. After living here a while, I decided to do open shelf storage instead. Remember, we're going to build a pantry in one corner of the laundry room. When I'm standing at the washing machine, the pantry will be in back of me. I know there will be plenty of room to maneuver in that area, but I was afraid it would feel too tight visually with cabinets above the washer and dryer. So, I opted for a long shelf instead. Since bottles of laundry soap and bleach aren't especially attractive, I bought a few baskets to hide my laundry supplies.

And I hopped back on Microsoft Publisher and made a few tags for those baskets.

My wise husband left plenty of room between the top of the appliances and the bottom of the shelf - in case we ever need to quickly reach the shut-off valves.

An added benefit is that the baskets allowed me to hide the electrical outlet and the cords for the appliances (in between the laundry soap and bleach baskets). Unless you walk over, stand in front of my washing machine, and peer in the little gap between those 2 baskets, you won't see them.

Like I said, I have a plan for the empty space on the wall above the laundry soap basket, so Sadie will be moving sometime soon. This is how the area looks right now.

Stay tuned. I'll have another post (or 2) about the laundry room.

All is well in the Keweenaw.