Laundry Room Makeover – It almost makes me want to do laundry…

The laundry room re-do is done!! In case you don’t remember, because it was really not memorable at all, this is what it looked like last week.

laundry room before

Boring. Bland. A little depressing.

But now, after many days of work, and lots of energy spent, this is our new laundry room!

Laundry room after

We replaced the old washer and dryer, and the new ones were my jumping off point for all the color choices. I was able to find an “oops” paint at Home Depot that worked perfectly with the dark teal. Have I said yet that saving money makes my day? I repainted the trim and doors to match the rest of the house. I used a oil-based paint from Sherwin Williams that is made specially for doors and trim. It covered in one coat, and it super durable. The puppy has already tested that out for me – he’s figured out that if he jumps on the door handles, the door will open! So far, not a scratch on the doors though, so I’m glad I opted for an oil base, even though the fumes are pretty heavy for a few days.

I love my new light that I got for $29 at Home Depot last week, originally $79. It is so bright compared to the dreadful “pimple” light that was there, and much less sad looking. It was just one of the 7 light fixtures that I bought for the house last week. They were clearing out their older stock, and getting rid of all their display items. (I’ll be posting the pendant lights I bought for $11 later – so cute!)

The cabinets that were above the washer and dryer were no longer easy to get into because the height of the new set, so we took off the doors and now I can get into them with much less effort.

We took the doors off the cabinets to make it easier to get what I needed

The cabinet that was in the corner behind the door was great for storage, but really made no sense in the laundry room when there wasn’t a table to fold on, or a place to put the laundry baskets. One of the first things I pinned on Pinterest was this cabinet.

My original inspiration…http://pinterest.com/pin/49927730/

With a little modification to include a place to stash the dirty clothes hampers, this is our version. So, my brother moved the old white cabinet out into the garage for me and we replaced it with…

My brother and I built this folding/sorting table ourselves!

This!!!

I love it! I can’t tell you how many times I have tripped on the baskets coming into the house because there was simply no place to put them that wasn’t in the way – the room is just too narrow! So, I designed it to have four cubbies for baskets, one for each of the humans in the house, and a space to roll the dirty laundry containers into so they were out of the way.  This keeps the walkway clear, gives me room to fold and a place for each person to collect their basket of clean clothes (or rummage through it to pull out one thing and leave the rest is more like it!). It literally makes me happy just to see it! I painted it white first, then taped off the design and painted it the same color as the walls. Ideally, I would have loved to get a granite piece for the top, but I just don’t want to put out all that money when we still have lots to do around here.

We added a shelf above for pets supplies

We put up a shelf above the cabinet, and it’s the perfect place for the dogs’ medicines, shampoos and other grooming supplies, tucked away in the boxes, which keeps it from looking cluttered and messy. And I still have room for other “stuff” that I am sure will accumulate. And three years after I bought it, I finally hung up the octopus delicates dryer, after a coat of white spray paint!

Our family’s collection of baseball hats seem to always get lost and had no where to “belong”, so we put an eight foot long hat rack along the wall that faces the washer and dryer.  It’s a perfect use of space that otherwise would have been unusable because of it’s high traffic flow.

We made a hat rack out of a 1 x4 and some hooks

And I made a leash hanger for by the door, using the same fabric I used for the boxes. Eventually, I’ll add some hooks for keys and my purse too.

I made a leash hanger with just a piece of leftover board, fabric and some hooks

 I love it when things have their own “home”. It makes it so much less stressful when you’re trying to get out the door.

The only thing I would still love to change is the ugly utility tub. It will happen, just not today.

So, there it is… it makes me giddy each time I go in there! I almost want to do laundry… almost.

What do you think? Would it encourage you to do laundry?

Thanks for stopping by!

Eliesa

UPDATE: We had to replace the washer and dryer pictured in this post. Although they “worked” (in fact, that dryer was fabulous!), the washer stunk to high heaven, therefore our clothes stank all the time too. We did all the recommended things to make it better, but nothing worked. Nothing makes me more mad than to have paid a lot of money for something that doesn’t work correctly. We replaced them with a top-loading Samsung washer and dryer and I couldn’t be happier. Unfortunately for me though, I’ll be having to repaint the laundry room – again – because they don’t “go” with that color. LOL!