How To Upcycle An Old Ironing Board To Make The Most Of A Small Laundry Room

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In most homes, laundry rooms are largely functional, often not that aesthetically pleasing, and usually messy, with piles of errant socks, boxes of dryer sheets, and beat-up old ironing boards to trip over. In a small laundry room, all of these challenges are compounded, but ironically, the solution for the issue is also to be found in among the explosion of clothes: the old ironing board. Placed vertically and outfitted with baskets, an upcycled ironing board becomes just the whimsical storage feature you need to declutter your laundry room. 

You can use a metal or a wooden ironing board for this project. However, there's an argument for holding out for a wooden one if you're going for a cottagecore or shabby chic decorating style in the space. These decorating styles place an emphasis on using upcycle vintage items because they chronicle life in bygone eras, telling the stories of our past. These decor styles also embrace soft colors and textures, as you'll see in practice once you paint the ironing board with something like this Chalky Chicks cottontail white chalkboard paint. Sponge brushes, a few of your favorite stencil patterns, and more chalkboard paint — in black or dark brown this time — expand on the story you're telling with this piece, as YouTuber Chalk It Up Fancy explains. To finish it off, you'll need some oval wire baskets from the Dollar Tree. Finally, you'll need a drill and some screws to attach the baskets to the ironing board. Once it's done, this piece will be as practical as it is pretty.

Start the project by cleaning any dirt and grime off the board. Covering it with a couple of coats of chalkboard paint takes it from vintage to the ultimate cottagecore piece in the space of an hour or so. Once that's done, feel free to stencil laundry-related words and phrases onto it, like "wash," "dry," and "fold." However, you're not limited to this design element, so get creative. Attaching the wire baskets to the front of the board with a few screws takes the piece from cute decor item to useful laundry storage that's ready to hold items like delicates, detergent pods, and dryer sheets.

If you're not sure if your hand is steady enough for stenciling, or you just don't trust your sense of design, try attaching Dollar Tree laundry room signs to the board instead. You can use screws for this task; however, it could be more fun to hang them on some wood-look plastic adhesive hooks instead of plain screws. Just glue some twine cords to the signs to make them hangable. Speaking of signs to hang on the board, you can use them to make a messaging system for your family. For example, paint the word "done" on one side of a galvanized steel sign like this one from Dollar Tree; once the paint dries, paint "not done" on the other side. Your family members can flip over the sign to let each other know the status of the laundry.

This is such a fun project because it's supremely hackable. For example, if your small laundry room leaves no space to store extra hangers, leave some room at the very top of the board for a hook, like the Homagic Heavy Duty Bathroom Wall Hook. You can paint it to match the stenciling on the board or leave it as is. 

Additionally, wooden clothespins make handy holders for small or delicate objects. You can clip items you don't want to lose, like single socks, or don't want to ruin by putting them in with the regular wash, like a silk blouse. Glue a couple of them on each side of the ironing board with some hot glue. If you're working with a metal ironing board, some magnet clips serve the same function. 

Finally, if you want to go with 100% wood for this project, swap out the metal baskets for some small wood slat crates, like these Youeon Rustic Wooden Nesting Crates. You can attach them to the board with screws. To make organizing with them both practical and cute, stencil each crate's function on the front before you attach it to the ironing board.