Laundry Inspiration

We have a really small laundry room.
I have a hard time even calling it a room. It's really more of a hallway from the house to the garage. I am, however, very thankful to have a laundry room. Although, with the vintage dryer that we've been using, I've managed to burn a few loads. In the dryer. Not the oven - the dryer.

I finally had to fess up to Kyle and tell him that the reason I hadn't been doing any laundry was because I was afraid of our dryer. Even after he was graciously gifted the set of vintage units last summer from a dear friend of ours, we still kept a new washer and dryer on our items-to-purchase-eventually list. The burning laundry - and therefore lack thereof led to them being moved up to the we-need-this-now list.

The good news is that an absolutely beautiful new front-loading washer and dryer are headed our way on Friday! I'm not even sure how socially acceptable it is to be so insanely excited about this. They're so fancy; I can hardly believe it!

The Home Depot

Aren't they pretty?!?!

In jumps the inspiration for the laundry room:

Step one:
Instead of buying the pedestal kits at $50 each, Kyle and I got the lumber required to build this pedestal:

From Ana White: Homemaker and Sweet Pickins

Which we may turn into more of a riser/table of sorts, as I'm short(ish), and we don't want the top of the units to be too high...

From Finding My Aloha

which brings me to Step two:
We also got sufficient lumber to cover the top of the units to form a table/shelf. With the added height of the riser/table/pedestal, the top of the units will be nearing the five foot level... and that's nearing a height tall enough for me to need a step stool (check back in the future... I'm sure I'll get one eventually).

From Bryn Alexandra

Step three:
Well, we don't have anything else for the laundry room just yet. I'm hoping this will happen in the near future... I want to put in more shelving and make the laundry room look aesthetically appealing.
...because this is what it looks like currently:

Our sad laundry room

My shelving inspiration include the following:

From Skip to my Lou

From Eat Sleep Decorate

I actually really like the draw-string ikea drying rack they use here:

From Imperfect Homemaking

It might work above the doors... but I'm not sure. It would require further measuring.

I also want to do some sort of crafty decorating like this:

From Your Little Birdie

In the meantime, I'm hoping to transfer the cat litter box to nowhere, the cats can deal with the rain and poop outside another room and put down an actual rug, and paint the walls. However, I am currently undecided on a paint color as of just yet, although I am considering a warm orange, deep teal, and gray... thoughts?

What does your laundry room look like? Is it in an awkward creepy location? Do you have any color suggestions for our laundry room?