Instagrammable laundry rooms are the latest luxury status symbol of rich millennials
Kate Guinness Design
- Instagrammable laundry rooms have become a new luxury status symbol for millennial homeowners.
- They're splurging on high-quality cabinets and counter tops, pricey taps, and $30 laundry detergent.
- Millennials faced economic hardships for years and are now keen to exhibit their spending prowess.
Rich millennials are starting to splurge on a space in the home that has previously been neglected and hidden from guests – the laundry room.
There's been an uptick in interest in recent years in the aesthetics of this space with the hashtags #laundryroom and #utilitylaundryroom both accumulating 1.6 billion views on TikTok with videos showing homeowners doing DIY renovation projects and others touring their luxurious laundry rooms. On Pinterest, "luxe laundry" was among the most searched terms in 2022.
Homeowners increased spending on laundry rooms by 33% in 2021, according to a 2022 survey by Houzz, an interior design website connecting homeowners with renovation professionals. Houzz surveyed 67,554 homeowners over the age of 18 in the US.
Sarah Davies-Bennion, a senior designer at UK-based interior design house Kate Guinness, told Insider that there's been an increase in client interest in the aesthetics of laundry rooms in recent years because of "an enduring general shift to spending more time at home altogether," which has increased since the pandemic.
"It's true to say that people generally no longer want to feel as though the utility room [laundry room] is a space in which the door needs to remain firmly closed," she said.
"In the UK in particular, it may be possible to attribute this rise in interest to the overall price of the property, which is particularly high and may be driving a desire for all spaces without exception to be beautiful as well as practical/highly usable," she added.
The millennial generation has spent years struggling to get on the property ladder after paying pricey rents to share a cramped apartment with strangers.
And now that many own their homes, they are keen to exert control over every inch of their house and are beautifying it to capture Instagram-worthy shots.
Instagram's popularity soared in the 2010s when many millennials were coming of age and at the time perfectly aesthetic images guaranteed virality and status on the platform. As they get older, they've continued to uphold this standard, but instead of posting their Starbucks cups and nights out, they're sharing home and lifestyle content instead.
On social media, upscale laundry rooms are decked out with colorful tiles, marble counters, tongue and groove wall paneling, expensive hardware, an abundance of storage space, and even dog showers in some cases. Others are taking it up a notch with nearly $30 luxury laundry detergents from brands like The Laundress and of course, the firm favorite – the $40 Aesop handwash, perched by the butler sink.
US-based designers like Dina Bandman, Nina Magon, and Priscila Forster told Forbes that they're seeing an uptick in homeowners upgrading their laundries and purchasing high-quality cabinets, flooring, and counter materials like porcelain or quartz.
Other luxury purchases extend to taps from designers like Perrin & Rowe offering pricey finishes like English bronze, nickel, and gold that can cost more than $1,500.
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