Do you have one of those scary laundry areas in the bowels of the basement? The dark dreary spot by the furnace designated for laundry with spider webs and creepy sounds? The place you run down to throw in a load and run back upstairs as quick as you can.

Yeah, that describes where we've been doing laundry for well over a decade until we finally built a basement laundry room on a $500 budget. It took our 20-year-old appliances to break down before we finally did something about it. Hopefully, you'll find our money-saving tips for creating a beautiful room to do your laundry inspiring and helpful.

Budget-Friendly Basement Laundry Room

Pictured below is what our scary basement laundry room looked like before the makeover. You can imagine how cold it was, especially in the winter with the concrete floors and walls.

Here it is from another angle so you can see the ceiling before the makeover too.

Pictured below is that same angle after the budget-friendly makeover. A big difference, right?

How sad would our brand new front loading washer and dryer have looked against the cold concrete walls and floor? But unfortunately, after paying for those shiny new red appliances, there wasn't much room left in the budget for a room makeover!

Determination is my middle name so Mr. Frugalista and I put our heads together to come up with a way we could afford to build a basement laundry room on a very tight budget.

Cost-Saving Tips For Building A Basement Laundry Room On A Budget

Aside from a lot of elbow grease, here is a breakdown of how we saved hundreds of dollars by using discontinued, clearance, and salvaged products to build our basement laundry room from top to bottom for $500.

DIY Laundry Room Cabinets

We found white cabinet doors at Habitat ReStore for $5 each. Then we built upper and lower basement laundry room cabinets to fit accordingly.

Most home improvement stores have an area where they sell offcut pieces of lumber at a discount. We built all the cabinet carcasses with offcut pieces of melamine purchased at Home Depot for under $20.

Basement Laundry Room Sink

The biggest splurge was the deep stainless steel sink at a cost of $70.00. However, we did save money by purchasing it at IKEA. We saved a lot of money by purchasing the sink taps at Habitat ReStore.

Laundry Room Backsplash

The 6" x 8" subway tiles are called Twill White Field from Home Depot at a cost of $1.50 each. Being a larger subway tile we needed fewer and, saved money by installing them ourselves.

DIY Laundry Room Counter

We saved a lot of money by building the lower cabinet countertop ourselves. It was built with a sheet of plywood left over from another project. We purchased a sheet of textured charcoal gray stock laminate from Home Depot for under $50.

Basement Laundry Room Flooring

The 12" x 12" porcelain floor tiles were leftover from our back landing and I think we paid $2.00 per tile on sale. Habitat ReStore is a great resource for finding inexpensive porcelain and ceramic floor tiles.

Basement Ceiling Tiles

We found discontinued 2' x 4' ceiling tiles for a fraction of the original cost. Being a larger ceiling tile panel, they covered more square footage with fewer tiles.

Laundry Room Light Fixture

With the laundry room being in the basement, the aesthetics of a new light fixture wasn't as important as finding one that provided adequate lighting. We found our ceiling mount light fixture with three adjustable lights on clearance for under $30.00.

Listed below is a cost breakdown of our basement laundry room makeover. We came in just under our budget $500 room makeover budget.

Basement Laundry Room Cost Breakdown

Upper and Lower Cabinets: $18
Cabinet Doors: $15
Laundry Sink: $70
Sink Taps: $25
Tile Backsplash: $27
Lower Cabinet Countertop: $45
Tile Flooring: $160
Ceiling Tiles: $60
Light Fixture: $28
Miscellaneous: $50
Total Basement Laundry Room Costs: $498

I bought this fun all change left in pockets will be considered a tip vinyl laundry room decal from a fundraiser my daughter's cheer team was having for the laundry room wall. A great way to support my Starbucks addiction!

Now instead of dreading laundry day in the dark and scary basement, I now want to bring a good book and hang out in this space!

What We Would Have Done Differently

We're very proud of how we were able to transform this dark and dreary area of our basement with a beautiful laundry room makeover on such a tight budget. But after living with this space for a few years, we realized there were four problems with the original design.

UPDATE:
Our original focus was primarily on the budget but we've since realized that equal attention should have been placed on the function of this space too. We have since modified the layout by tweaking our basement laundry room makeover so the room functions much better.

Thanks for stopping by the Interior Frugalista today! I hope you were inspired by our cost-saving tips for building a beautiful basement laundry room on a $500 budget.

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