The laundry is often the last room to get any renovation attention, which is exactly why so many Hobart homes are still working around a laundry that was never designed properly in the first place. A well-planned laundry renovation can make a genuinely noticeable difference to daily life, even in a small space.

In this guide

  1. Get the workflow right first
  2. Ideas that make a small laundry work harder
  3. Don’t overlook ventilation
  4. Making it do double duty

Get the workflow right first

Before choosing finishes, it’s worth thinking through how the room is actually used: where washing gets sorted, where it’s washed, where it dries (or air-dries in poor weather), and where it gets folded and put away. A laundry that only accounts for the washing machine and a single bench misses most of that workflow.

Ideas that make a small laundry work harder

  • Stacked washer and dryer instead of side-by-side, freeing up bench or storage space.
  • A pull-out hanging rail above the bench for air-drying items indoors during Hobart’s wetter months.
  • Tall, narrow cabinetry rather than wide cupboards, especially in laundries under a metre or so wide.
  • A single deep trough rather than a full-size laundry sink, if space is genuinely tight — it still handles hand-washing and soaking without eating into bench space.
  • Fold-down bench sections in very small laundries, giving you folding space only when you need it.

Don’t overlook ventilation

Laundries generate a lot of moisture, and older Hobart homes often have laundries with poor ventilation to begin with. A correctly sized exhaust fan (and, where possible, a window) makes a genuine difference to preventing mould and damp issues over time — see our guide on renovating for Tasmania’s climate for more on managing moisture through the cooler months.

Making it do double duty

If your laundry has any spare width, it’s often worth using some of it for mudroom-style storage — hooks, a bench to sit down and remove shoes, or a spot for school bags — rather than defaulting to a full wall of laundry cabinetry that may go under-used.

Thinking about a laundry renovation? Get in touch and we’ll help you plan a layout that actually earns its keep.