Of all the rooms in a Sydney home, the laundry is the one homeowners think about last – and the one they most wish they had upgraded sooner. It’s easy to see why. Kitchens and bathrooms dominate renovation conversations, and the laundry often gets treated as an afterthought: a cramped, awkward space fitted around whatever appliances happened to arrive with the house. But a well-designed laundry renovation changes one of the most frequently used rooms in the home from a source of daily friction into a space that genuinely
works for you.
At Novalé, we see the same pattern again and again: clients come to us for a bathroom or kitchen renovation, and once they see how much more functional a well-planned space can be, the laundry is the next room on the list. This guide covers what actually makes a laundry renovation succeed.
Start With the Storage Hierarchy
A laundry has less floor area to work with than almost any other room in the house, which makes storage planning more important, not less. The most functional laundries are built around a clear storage hierarchy rather than whatever cabinetry happened to fit.
Overhead cabinetry is for items you reach for occasionally – spare linen, cleaning products used less often, seasonal items. Below-bench storage should hold what you use constantly: detergents, stain removers, pegs, and bins for sorting. And the space around the tub, if you have one, needs to accommodate soaking, hand-washing, and the everyday mess of muddy shoes or sports gear without becoming the room’s dumping ground. Getting this hierarchy right at the design stage, rather than retrofitting it later, is what separates a laundry that works from one that quietly frustrates you every wash day.
Tub, Trough, or No Tub at All?
This is one of the first decisions in any laundry renovation, and the right answer depends entirely on how your household actually uses the space. A full-sized tub is valuable for households with young children, pets, gardens, or anyone who hand-washes delicates or soaks stained sportswear regularly. A slimline trough suits smaller households who need somewhere for the occasional spill or soak but don’t want to sacrifice bench space. And for some households – particularly smaller apartments or homes with a strong outdoor laundry alternative – skipping the tub altogether frees up valuable bench length for folding and sorting. There’s no universally correct answer here, which is exactly why this decision benefits from a proper design conversation rather than a default assumption.
Bench Height and Cabinetry That Actually Suits You
Standard bench heights are a compromise designed to suit an average user, but laundries are one of the few rooms where it’s worth reconsidering the standard. If folding is the task you do most, a slightly higher bench reduces the back strain of hunching over washing for extended periods. Cabinetry choices matter just as much: soft-close drawers rather than doors make retrieving detergent easier one-handed while you’re holding a basket, and a mix of open shelving and closed cabinetry keeps frequently used items accessible without the room feeling cluttered.
Waterproofing Requirements
Because a laundry is a wet area, it is subject to the same waterproofing standards as a bathroom – a detail that’s easy to overlook when comparing quotes. Floor waste points, tub surrounds, and any wall adjacent to the tub or washing machine outlet need to be correctly waterproofed and tested before flooring and cabinetry go in. Skipping or rushing this step is one of the most common causes of water damage in older laundries, quietly affecting subfloors and adjoining rooms long before it becomes visible.
Dryer Ventilation: Don’t Treat It as an Afterthought
Dryer ventilation is frequently the most under-planned element of a laundry renovation. A dryer needs either external venting or a condenser/heat-pump configuration that manages moisture without pumping it straight into a small, enclosed room. Poor ventilation planning leads to persistent dampness, mould risk, and a laundry that never quite feels fresh – problems that are far cheaper to design out from the start than to retrofit once cabinetry and tiling are in place.
When Laundry and Bathroom Renovations Overlap
If your laundry shares a wall or plumbing stack with a bathroom renovation you’re already planning, there’s a strong efficiency case for scoping both at once. Combined plumbing and waterproofing mobilisation, shared trade scheduling, and consistent material selection across both wet areas can meaningfully reduce both cost and disruption compared with treating them as two separate projects down the track.
Crows Nest Bathroom and Laundry Renovation
Let Novalé Design a Laundry That Works as Hard as You Do
At Novalé, our interior designers bring the same rigour to laundry renovations as we do to bathrooms and kitchens – because a laundry that’s properly planned, not just resurfaced, is one you’ll actually enjoy using. If you’re ready to talk through what’s possible for your space, book a free consultation with our design team or visit novale.com.au to get started. Call us on 1800 NOVALÉ – we’d love to help you finally upgrade the room you use every single day.
