KAREN WIGHT -- No Place Like Home

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Every other week, No Place Like Home will take

readers on a tour of a local residence.

My neighbor Judy has the world’s best laundry room.

Before I ooze over the laundry room, however, there is pre-laundry

perfection at work: The upstairs bedrooms have laundry chutes that

deliver dirty clothes within inches of the washing machine. This is

important. No effort is wasted on dirty garment retrieval. A small amount

of effort on the part of her children results in, for better or worse,

loads (and I do mean loads) of dirty laundry.

Now for the laundry room: It has luxurious proportions. There is

plenty of counter space for stacks of folded laundry. No one’s

tightie-whities have to commingle in this laundry nirvana.

There’s a built-in ironing board that disappears when not in use.

There are cupboards galore: hampers, pullout shelves and file cabinets.

She even has a gift-wrapping station built in.

There is a sink for the hand-washables. And lots of hanging space.

There is a built-in desk for the computer with an under-the-counter

keyboard that tucks away when not in use. The open shelves on one wall

host a mini-television-VCR, a phone-fax-copy machine and baskets with

gingham liners that hold art supplies.

he decor is cheerful but not over the top. The cupboards are deep blue

and have been sanded at the edges to give them a slightly rustic

appearance. A blue and natural sisal rug in the center of the room breaks

up the floor space. The wallpaper has roosters to keep an eye on the

laundry activity, and the blue and white plaid shade with dark blue

edging over the window finishes the look.

If a laundry room can make a heart sing, this one does. It could

possibly be the model of perfection that all other laundry rooms should

measure up to. We are talking about laundry room royalty here.

It’s the kind of room that fate has smiled on to allow the morning

light to pour in through the window.

It’s hard to plan a room like that. Some of it is just kismet. I doubt

that 40 years ago the builders thought much about the laundry room. They

just built it on the side of the house with a backyard access: on paper

it made sense. But in reality, they gave the laundry room one of the best

spots in the house.

Of course I have to give Judy a little credit too. She is amazingly

organized, there is a place for everything and everything is in its

place.

And given the amount of time any of us spends on laundry, this room is

as good as it gets. It would be very hard to be cranky when folding

laundry in this room. And if you were cranky, you could turn on an old

movie and lighten the mood, maybe an old musical, or an old black and

white Katherine Hepburn film.

And by the way, she does have a fine collection of old movies that I

have dipped into on occasion. And yes, she keeps them in her laundry

room.

* KAREN WIGHT is a Newport Beach resident. Her column runs Saturdays.

Michele Miller contributed to this week’s column.

Photo Caption:

The laundry room cabinets were first painted a deep blue, then

sparingly sanded on the edges and corners to give them a slightly rustic

look that adds to the overall charm of the world’s best laundry room.

(Faux finish by Michael Jewel)