One of those rooms is our Utility/Laundry Room. And while it's not the prettiest, it's a hard working room and we've made some minor changes that make it function better for now. These "small wins" go a long way towards increasing our satisfaction with our home until we can save up for the big renovation. I've only shown this room empty when we first moved in so come on in and see how it works for our family today.

Improving Energy Efficiency and Saving Costs:

As this is a larger home than our previous one (and costs more to run), I find that I've become much more energy conscious and constantly look for ways to save on our energy bill. This weekend's Earth Day was a good reminder that small changes can add up.

One of the things we've done in this particular room was to install energy efficient appliances, We loved the washer and dryer we had in our old laundry room and bought the same ones for our new house. They are ENERGY STAR certified and can save us $490 over the lifetime of the appliance. Plus, the advanced features ensure the water levels and dryer cycle lengths are optimized for the size and type of load so I'm not unnecessarily wasting energy. Additionally, I run the laundry off peak hours, on weekends and after 7pm on weekdays.



We've been making other energy saving changes throughout our house too: any recessed lights we've installed so far have all been LEDs, we've put lights on dimmers, and put our outdoor lights on timers. One thing I do want to add into this laundry room is an indoor motion sensor. The light switch is far away from the entry door which makes it a challenge to turn the lights on or off, especially when your hands are full with laundry hampers!

If you live in Ontario and are looking to make your home more energy efficient, now's a great time to take advantage of Save on Energy's Deal Days. Until May 6th, many home improvement retailers including Home Depot Canada, Costco, Walmart and more are offering in-store savings on a variety of energy-efficient products such as LED bulbs, dimmer switches, and programmable thermostats. There's no coupon required; look for the Save on Energy signage in-store and get the discount at checkout on eligible products.

You can head over to the Save On Energy site to see the full list of incentives and participating retailers. I just picked up some dimmers for my One Room Challenge master bedroom and can't wait to show you how that room turns out soon!

Improving Organization:

Nothing beats a well-organized space. Organization solutions don't have to be pretty - they just have to work! We brought this wooden storage rack from our old house and now use it to hold all of our paint. Paint left from the previous owners, paint from our previous house, paint for our cottage... it's all here. I know I should get rid of some of these cans but I always think maybe one day I'll need that specific colour and I'll regret having thrown it out, which is how we end up with this situation, ha! But it's organized and the cans are labelled and this old shelving unit brings me joy.

Improving Aesthetics:

Is it surprising that I actually enjoy doing laundry in this room? I've been coveting Steele Canvas Baskets for a long time and knew they were a necessity for our home. One fun feature of our house is the laundry chute. It runs from the main bathroom on the top floor, through the powder room on the main floor and lands right here in the laundry room. I actually love seeing the large wheeled basket filled with laundry as I can easily wheel it on over to the machines.



We use an inexpensive plastic folding table and I use two smaller Steele baskets to sort the clean laundry, one for Chloe's clothes and bedding, and the other for Sean and my clothes. Half the battle is folding the laundry; it's so much easier when you have pretty baskets on hand!



I know it's not much to look at now, but one day I'll have the small baskets sitting on shelves and the large basket rolled under a folding counter and it will look somewhat like this:

Design by Ashley Winn Design

Totally doable, right? We're still months (years?) away from that beautiful laundry room but the small changes we've made in the mean time have made us fall a little more in love with that room today.

Do you have any small wins in your home? Have you made any minor improvements lately to make your 'pre-renovation' rooms more livable? What changes have you made to make your home more energy efficient?

***

This conversation has been sponsored by Save on Energy, Thank you for supporting the brands that make this blog possible.