Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Laundry Room Makeover

My husband doesn't understand--it's the Laundry Room, for cryin' out loud! Why bother making it look good? I'll tell you two reasons:
1. I spend a lot of time in there. Seriously, folks. Three little ones? I practically LIVE in the laundry room. And doing laundry every day is bad enough, I don't want to have to suffer it out in an ugly room.

2. The laundry room is small. With limited time and a more limited budget, it's hard to pull a whole room together. I don't know of any room in our house that I am fully satisfied with. But since I'm doing a very small room, it's a lot easier to get more of what I want done. And a disclaimer: I'm not completely finished. There are a couple of areas that I still need to work on, but it's a whole lot better!

So, without further ado, here's the way the laundry room started out:


Yes, have a good look at all that clutter--shoes and bags of clothes to share on the floor, my DIY supplies piled on the counter. Yikes. And take a lood at those cupboards! I do NOT love the pink wood. Ugh.

So I mentioned in this post that I didn't like my new coat rack blending in with the walls, so I decided to paint them. My color scheme was inspired by this wall art I picked up a while ago at Hobby Lobby, but never put up because it didn't match:

You can see my cabinets peeking out, can't you?
Okay, okay, here's the new look of the laundry room:





So a couple of things happened here. Obviously, I painted the walls & cabinets. The wall color is one that the previous owners had left in the shed, so it was obviously free. The cabinets was from a gallon of Ooops! that I had picked up from Lowes months ago for $3 because I loved the color. But since I'm generally a neutral (read: boring) decorator, I hadn't used it. But I LOVE it on the cabinets! The rugs were stolen from the master bath, and are not permanent, but I like the look for now.

You'll also notice the curtains:


I did buy that material specifically for that window. I bought a yard (way too much) for 50% at Joann's, I think it was about $13/yard. The curtain rod was left over from the boys' old room. I'm thinking of spray painting it black. In front of the window is a silver metal hang bar for clothes--hideous! I thought about taking it down, but there's also the wood supports on the side that would look odd all by themselves. So I used some of my extra fabric to make a little cover. I just sewed a long tube and slid it over. Didn't even hem the ends, just tucked them it. Awesome.
I also did the electical covers with more extra material:


I used Mod Podge and cover the light switch cover and two electrical outlets.
This is above the cabinets, and I'm not toally satisfied with it yet, but it's a start.

The birdcage is $3.99 from Goodwill, and started out like this:

The plate was $3 from Ross, and the plant was comandeered from elsewhere in the house. I don't like the plant up there, though. Looks a little too 90s for me. So that's a work in progress.

Also a work in progress is the lighting. Currently, there's this:
 
Beauuuuuty, Mate!

I'm thinking if anyone is interested in getting me a Christmas or birthday present, something like this might be nice:


But you know, whatever ;)

For your pleasure, here's a quick review.

Before:



And After:




DIY Day @ ASPTL





6 comments:

Dusa said...

Beautiful job - and the bright cabinets are what make the room! Good on ya!

Heather Henderson said...

great job - i think every woman deserves to have a beautiful, decorated laundry room.

Maryann @ Domestically-Speaking said...

I absolutely agree with you! Why can't your laundry room look pretty. I'm working on my this month, trying to collect goodies for decor. Yours turned out great.

Unknown said...

The laundry room is literally at the very bottom of oukr re-do list. So, I'm definetly looking forward to the day when that room is done, because by then the entire house will be mah-ve-lous! Great job!

Katherine @ Grass Stains said...

I hope to redo my laundry area soon, too ... It's just an area behind folding doors, but I still want to paint it and use some baskets or something for organization. I LOVE the red paint you used ... you'd never know it was Oops paint! Great job.

Mandy said...

Looks so much better! You did a great job :)