My current project – the laundry room

Laundry Room Before and Inspiration

I’ve been working on our laundry room! Finally. When we moved here, it was one of the first things I wanted to do, but it kept getting put off because of the nine hundred other things that took priority over it, like getting the water system working. This is the laundry room “before”.

Laundry room before – ugh

Laundry room before – washer dryer, beige walls, beige floors – completely bland

   Like all the other rooms in the house, except for the kids’s bedrooms, it was painted a depressing cream. The entire house was painted, from baseboards to ceilings, a dirty, dingy cream color that just made me depressed to be in the house. Unfortunately, the tile is the same sad color too, and it runs throughout the house. Sorry, I’m getting off topic.  Anyway, as you can see, the laundry room is pretty narrow. It sits at the end of the hallway, and leads to the garage, so it’s a high traffic area. There was no space for laundry baskets or to sort clothes, etc. . Although I liked that it had that storage piece in there, I desperately wanted a table to fold clothes on. In the old house we had no room to fold either, so all the clothes were folded at the kitchen table. This was a royal pain in the tush because with four people living in the house, there was always laundry on the table and it looked so trashy. Since we’ve moved here, I’ve been doing the same thing here too, except on the dining room table which is right next to the front door. Highly embarrassing to have our undies on display when people “stop by” unexpectedly to see the new house.

In true “me” fashion, I’ve been searching Pinterest for ideas for a table/cabinet/place to stash the laundry baskets. I’ve found quite a few that I would love to have. Here are a few of my favorites…

my inspiration laundry room

I liked the long table right over the washer and dryer.I like the space for the dirty clothes bins

I love the skirt around the washtub (ours is very similar)

And finally, I loved the cabinet in the corner, but I need it for basket space.

So far, we have replaced the old washer and dryer with the ones we had at our previous house. They are the Electrolux ones in teal, so our color palette is already sort of set. I found an “oops” paint in a lighter shade of teal at Home Depot which is as close to perfect for the room as I could get. Unfortunately, it was a custom color match, so it has no name. Last week, my brother moved the cabinet in the corner to the garage, and I painted the room. The trim and doors were painted white to match the rest of the house, and it almost immediately got rid of the dingy feel of the previous colors. I love white for it’s ability to cheer a place up!

I couldn’t find any kind of cabinetry that fit exactly what I needed at any of the big box stores, and I didn’t want to pay a fortune to have one custom made. So, off to the Home Depot we went. I love that place. It makes me happier than any clothes store ever has. We bought all the supplies on Wednesday and on Friday, my brother came over to assemble the cabinet. It is almost done except for the painting and finishing touches. Which is what I am doing today. I would have loved to have finished the table top in some cool way, like this…

But I don’t have the time, or the liver, to collect all those bottle caps 🙁 I also thought a penny table top would be cute, but I decided against it when I realized that no one would ever get to see it under the piles of clothes!

I think I am going to just paint it, then tape off a design, paint it again and call it a day. Even without the whole project finished, I am happier than a pig in poo right now, as I finally have a place in the “laundry room” to do laundry! When I finish, I’ll post the “after” pics. Wish me luck!

Have any recommendations for a cool table top?

Eliesa

To check out the completed laundry room, click HERE