House Love: The Laundry Room Makeover

I am sooo excited to close the "laundry room project." I did it all by my big girl self (minus 1 little thing) and it took me 6 weeks to finish. It takes that long when you only have 1-2 hours at night to work on it in sporadic shifts. But it is done and I love it! I have started the one-project/room-at-a-time approach to get things done around here. I don't know about you but it aids in my decision making and timeline when I know I can't move on until the current project is complete (I may or may not be slightly impatient). It's lengthy, but I like things all in one place, so here is the 411 to some of the questions I've been getting.

 

When Ryan shared he would be traveling 3 out of 5 weeks back in January/February, I knew I would have many nights to fill. I don't do well sitting around as a vegetable on the couch by myself. I hear every little noise and let my mind go to the moon and back with what it could be. I typically totally slack off in housework while Ryan is gone (a relief in "house duties" is good for the soul!) so my nights are free to catch up on some things I want to do. I tackled the laundry room because it didn't need anything too major, I thought and hoped I could do it all myself without bothering Ryan and I had a good idea of what I wanted already. Here is a list of what I did and some info with it to answer some of your questions.

 

P.S. Isn't it the worst when you want to replicate something but can't figure out how someone did it?? I can't stand that, so since I don't want to be guilty of that crime, here goes....

 

1. Paint Walls and Trim

 

I had some crazy ideas to paint the laundry room a really bright color - you know, to brighten the mood when your doing laundry every day of your life. But we had two gallons of the grey paint we used in other parts of the house, so the cheap Casey came out and decided to use it up and use bright colors for other parts of the room. So, late one night, I got out all of the paint supplies and gave the room two coats of Sherwin Williams "Greyish." (p.s. I LOVE how it looks in here with no natural light. I'm not as happy with how it turned out in our family and dining rooms because there are so many windows, but that's another topic, another day.) It is very hard to move a washer and dryer by your female-self, so if you come over, don't look behind them. You will find the ugly, matte dirty khaki-cream that was there. :)

 

The trim was this amazingly horrid super-gloss yellowed white. Yes. The picture can explain it all. Again, it is hard to paint trim in small spaces so behind the washer/dryer and the tops of the shelves are a no-look zone. :)

 

 

 

 

2. Panel Box

 

You can't put all of this time in beautifying your laundry room and have this ugliness staring at you, right? Right. No problem, I thought, I'll just pop that face off and spray paint it then slap it back up. All well and good til I found out I was about to electrocute myself. Papa T shared the valuable information with me about some big 200-something volt wire that really shouldn't be messed with by wanna-be, do-it-yourself housewives and moms. :) No problem, I'll just paint it with a smooth surface mini roller! Except it took like 10 coats of paint. But alas, much better and I can walk into the room without cringing at its sight. The little white key was in the $1 bin at Michaels and is my nod to Ms. Hewes on Downton Abbey. :) I sometimes feel like I'm doing laundry for a house as big as Downton.

 

 

 

3. Shelving

 

My inspiration picture came from Pinterest (of course). I knew I wanted a small shelf right above the washer/dryer to keep things from falling back there and to put my detergent and some decor on. My husband is carrying an incredible load these days. He is working far too hard during the day to provide for our family for me to nag him to do small petty things for me at night. So, time to be a big girl and figure things out! I think I tackled the shelf while he was in France for his longest trip so that if I totally destroyed the walls, the electricity, the washer, dryer or foundation of the house, I would have a few days to get some contractors in here to clean up the mess before he got home :) It wasn't that hard except that heavy washer and dryer again. I couldn't quite get them pulled out as far as I needed so some Casey-fying might have taken place to get the brackets screwed in place :)

 

Obviously, I'm not efficient in knowing the tools I needed so I brought a bunch in to choose from!

 

 

The shelving holds the things I use most like detergent, dryer sheets etc... but also allowed me to put some decor up to give me something to look at.  

 

 

I love this sign - I need to remind myself of it frequently. And Oxi Clean demands its own jar around here.

 

The frame and the dairy glass were more $1 bin and $3 bin finds at Michaels.

This is my "housekeeping" chart that I came up with for our household after seeing the idea from the fabulous, organized Tara D. It works for us and keeps me from being overwhelmed with all of my responsibilities. And if I'm being real, it is the only way my house would EVER get dusted...much less once every week! :) It also keeps me somewhat caught up on Laundry (my mom is laughing hysterically right now since she always does at least 2 loads when she pops in) but it does keep me from having 10 loads of laundry every Saturday.

 

I made my own Laundry Detergent using a recipe on Pinterest. I tried the liquid stuff in Ohio and while it took $12 to make enough detergent for our entire year in Ohio, I miss clean, fresh smelling clothes! This recipe is awesome and is working great so far to get the gazillion stains out of our clothes and we smell like walking lavender! :)

This is the recipe for the laundry soap I used. DIY Powder Laundry Detergent

 

The wire shelving was already there and while it is not the best look, it holds a great purpose letting me hang and air dry our do-not-dry clothes. I just gave it a little touch up of the trim paint so it would cover the old yellowing plastic.

 

4. Sock Board

 

I've been agonizing on what to do with this little pallet board my parents had in their attic. I finally decided to use what I  had and glue the clothespins to it for our lost socks. Hindsight now tells me I should have put 30 more pins up there. :) The only pockets I find things in right now is in Ryan's pants, but this summer, I expect I will find lots of little treasures in little pockets. :) For now, the change is adding up to buy my next Jubala decaf vanilla latte. YUM!

 

I'm not completely sure what I will stick up on the other side where the laundry schedule paper is. I'm sure it will become a hodge podge board as we go. And that little metal ring around the mason jar? That is what I could not figure out how to hang! So Ryan had to step in and finish that one for me.

 

 

 

5. Crates and Containers

All of the crates and baskets are from Michaels or some I already had. I went and used my 40% or 50% coupons to get each basket so I didn't pay much for any of them. The crates come unfinished so I just used some sample paint we had in the garage to paint them a base color (a light grey) and then just used a dry brush to paint on the blue. Much easier than having to distress them around the edges afterward. I got the chalkboard labels from Michaels as well ( I should say the Laundry Room was brought to you by Lowes and Michaels). They were the colors of the fabric I got for the rug so I snatched them up in a hurry! I used my sister's fabulous liquid chalk pen to try to write cutesy but obviously failed. Horrible penmanship right here.

 

I think I might go get some more of the fruit baskets at Michaels next time they are on sale - I like how they have handles and the little labels fit much easier on them. I LOVE having the cleaning supplies split up. No digging around an entire closet or shelf to find all I need to dust or take care of the floors or disinfect etc... Absurd Type A-ness coming out right now. I have a basket or crate for Dusting, Moping/floor care, Cleaning/disinfecting, manuals/lightbulbs, rags, batteries/flashlights and those huge refill bottles of cleaning supplies. 

 

The blue crates are HEAVY, so they hold things we don't need to use often. I had to go to a smaller basket for the cleaning stuff so I could pull them down easier.

 

 

 

6. The Floor!

 

This is probably my favorite part of the room. The laundry room is not going to stay the laundry room long term. We have plans to move it when we do a little remodel down the road. Therefore, in my mind at least, there was no use in buying flooring you have to install and go to all of that trouble. But again, if your going to beautify your room, can you really feel completed with old, cracked vinyl flooring? I could not, so the hunt for a solution began.

 

 

I found this tutorial on Pinterest for a DIY fabric rug. It appealed to me because I knew I could make it the dimensions I wanted and could work around the vent in the flooring. She has all of the details listed out in the tutorial but basically it is memory foam mat that Lowes/Home Depot sell on a the roll covered in an indoor/outdoor fabric. The memory foam feels great to stand on and it is waterproof. It runs $3-$4 a foot so my total cost was right under $30. I got my outdoor fabric from my favorite website - fabric.com for $7 for two yards on clearance! I already had the spray adhesive and I double secured the underside of my mat with duck tape so it will not slip and slide. Even though the fabric is coated with protectant, I didn't want dirt or water to mess up my project so I put 3 coats of WATER based polyurethane. Yes there is such a thing and yes, it is soo expensive! :( I only needed a tiny amount (it spreads out great with a roller) so I bought the smallest, tiny can which was $10. grrrrr. So all in all the floor mat was around $50, but it is a "custom" size that is super durable and covers all of that old vinyl! I don't know if I would use this method for a kitchen sink rug or entry way rug like the tutorial suggests. I feel like things would get loose or the tight corners would get soft over time. Since my rug is "boxed in" with walls and the washer/dryer on all four sides, it really has no where to go.

 

You start by measuring and cutting the foam mat. Make sure you are thinking clearly when you do this and put the side with ridges on the BOTTOM...more on that later. Then you lay the mat on the fabric and make your cuts.

 

 

I was on the third trip, Day 5 or 6 without Ryan at home at night so my brain was fried. I measured and cut my mat "upside down." It wouldn't matter except I had to make a cut out for the floor vent. This sight right here will make you cry...







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But after a little E-6000 glue and a vacuum to put on top, voila! All better... ;)

 

 

And last, everyone loves a side-by-side. All in all, I would say the entire project was right at or under $100. I had alot of things already like the paint, paint supplies, glue, frames, pins etc... so that helped. The only thing I have my eye on is a pendant light from Ikea - a whopping $15 bucks. I may forget about it when I move on to something else but we will see! Thanks for your kind comments and questions - hopefully you got the answers you wanted and can go do something fun at your house!