A different kind of laundry room

I live in a grove house built in 1903. My laundry room is a bit different from the ones described in “Laundry Rooms Clean Up Nicely,” [June 28]. It’s not even in the house; it’s in a shed, a two-second dash from the back door, that also houses a refrigerator and provides winter storage for a barbecue and a hammock. The tongue-and-groove walls are decorated with spider webs, and the cement floor is often strewn with orange blossoms and wisteria leaves that drift in from the garden. The pyracantha growing on the window screen has to be hacked back periodically so it doesn’t invade. Sometimes a lizard scuttles from under the washer, and last August I found a dead opossum behind the dryer.

Still, my clothes come out just as clean and dry as those from the la-di-da laundry rooms. I wouldn’t trade.

KATHRYN WILKENS

Upland