It’s every writer’s dream to lock themselves in a cabin, hut, or shack, and write like it was the only thing that mattered. Or at least it mattered enough to shut the door to other responsibilities and give their attention to the page.
I started freelancing a few years ago, before the pandemic changed how and where we work. Back then, I went to co-working spaces, sometimes to cafes, but often I just chose a corner at home and wrote, with no one else around me to claim the space.
I also had a corner in our bedroom set up with a desk, frames, photographs, and a small bookshelf with reference books and notebooks. With a hub dedicated to my work as a writer and copywriter, I felt legitimate.
A series of unfortunate global events meant that there are now three of us (one a boisterous three-year-old) at home on most days. The quiet writing needs became elusive. Both the money and the space that Virginia Woolf suggests are essential to preserve one’s intellectual freedom were sparse. I was drowning in noise, in domestic clamour, struggling to catch any ‘writing thoughts’. I needed a space where I could close the door on everything and everyone else.
What to do, Mrs Woolf?
I needed a space where I could close the door on everything and everyone else.
Enter the laundry - the only space I could close the door to and feel some sense of privacy. It’s at the back of our little unit, away from the flightpath of our daily family activities. To stake claim on the space, I bought an ergonomic chair, a narrow desk, and a standing desk to put on top of it.
When we first moved into our house back in 2016, I’d never had a laundry before. Not in a room all of its own. A whole 3x2 metres dedicated exclusively to keeping things clean. I couldn’t help seeing it as a waste. Did we need a big laundry more than I needed a space to work and write in?
Over time, I lobbied with my partner to remodel it into a study, but failed. It would’ve cost a fortune to redirect the pipes, integrate the laundry into the bathroom, let more light in with a larger window - the list goes on. But this is a matter far bigger than home design. Or is it?
The similarities between my laundry office and Woolf’s renovated garden toolshed are not aesthetic. The vacuum cleaner bombs my Zoom meetings, sometimes even the colourful fluffy duster makes an appearance. If I turn to my left, the cold laundry sink and washing machine greet me. To my right, the linen cabinet is stuffed with what you’d expect, but also notebooks, magazines, books.
Aesthetics aside, the laundry gave me a space (can’t quite call it a room) of my own, and with it, a sense of the importance of my own work.
Aesthetics aside, the laundry gave me a space (can’t quite call it a room) of my own, and with it, a sense of the importance of my own work. Not in a changing-the-world-one-word-at-a-time way, but in a my-work-matters way. It matters to me, to my family, to us putting food on the table.
I’ve resented the lack of aesthetics in my ‘study’ for a big part of last year. The room got cold in winter, my clients’ or colleagues' eyes wandered towards the vacuum cleaner on the wall, the light was not great. I blamed the laundry for clients not accepting a work proposal I sent, for my creativity stalling, for not being warm enough, cold enough.
I was judging the laundry against the idyllic writing hut. And it was losing. I was embarrassed by it. I thought it diminished my credibility, the quality of my output, even my success as a working woman.
And maybe it did. But in a year when many women lost their jobs, or worked in environments that made them worry about their health, or had to work and homeschool at the same time, I had a small space, whose door I could close, and let my thoughts turn into words, and sometimes, those words turned into money. Freedom!
One day, a writing friend made a joke about my obvious laundry background on Zoom. We laughed. I laughed. And once I was able to laugh at it, to own its inescapable laundriness, it seemed much easier to appreciate its gifts.
As I was writing this piece, a colleague pointed out that Australian comedian and writer Nelly Thomas has been writing from her laundry for some years. I guess she may have also questioned if a space for cleaning comes before a space for intellectual freedom.
I still dream of an idyllic retreat, with wooden beams; cozy and warm and fireplace-y. But if I’m really honest, this forced experiment showed me that a door that closes is the most important element in that picture.
I still dream of an idyllic retreat, with wooden beams; cozy and warm and fireplace-y. But if I’m really honest, this forced experiment showed me that a door that closes is the most important element in that picture.
I still don’t love my laundry office. It’s still cold. It’s still not pretty. But with a few adjustments (a blanket on my knees, some pictures stuck on the wall with blu-tack) it manages the job of giving me intellectual freedom just fine, thank you.
Antoanela Safca is a Romanian-born writer based in Melbourne, where she works from her laundry. Follow Antoanela on Twitter at @antoanela_safca.
