De-drabbing the Laundry Room

16 Wednesday May 2012

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Laundry is all about cleanliness. Our laundry room had a case of the 3 D’s – dark, drab and dirty. Worse then that, it was laundry room with no storage! What!? Notice the mess. Notice the drab.

So, last month I decided to invest some time and a few bucks into this little area.

Here we are after repairing the walls.

Surprise! We decided to go with stripes! I was inspired by this picture in BHG. I figured it would be easy to go bold in a small space, so if it turned out disastrous or went out of style in a few years it would be relatively easy to paint over.

Painting the stripes was actually super easy. Measuring the stripes was the most time consuming part of this step. Steve is super meticulous with these types of projects, so everything turned our straight and level. We made marks with a pencil every 8 inches and connected the dots using FrogTape – aka the best painters tape ever.

I essentially followed the tips from the Centsational Girl post from a while back. Worked like a charm. Here we are with nice clean grey lines.

We used the leftover grey paint from our bedroom for the stripes – Going Grey by Olympic. Perfect.

White and Grey Laundry Room

Next step was installing the shelves. These little guys were about $6 each, plus a few bucks for the brackets and special drywall screws. Again, Steve and his exacting eye made everything uber level.

How amazing is it to have shelves?! Flair even has a little basket with all her goodies in it.

And here we are with the finished product!

White and Grey Stripes - Laundry One thing should be mentioned here. Really, a testament the the previous owners of the house. They didn’t measure the washer and dryer before they bought it. Honest. The doors to the closet don’t close if they are arraigned in a normal manner – straight. Therefore, we need to have them on an angle. Oh well. So is life.

Of course, I am sure that the little V between the washer and dryer will become the great abyss that eats up socks. Eventually, the plan is to put some sort of board across the machines to make a flat surface. Perfect for folding clothes and keeping knickknacks.

Total cost of the project – $12 for shelves, $10 brackets, $20 Paint -$42! The laundry room actually feeling clean? Priceless.

We are super thrilled with this project. What a difference it makes! Hope you like it!

Have you gone bold in a small space? How do you keep your laundry area organized?

~C+S

Laundry Room Rehab

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by A Merry Journey in House

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Laundry Room

Oh Laundry Room. What shall I say to Thee?

When we repainted the downstairs bathroom the laundry room was one of those projects that we would get to another time. We could close the door and no one could see the mess that was within. Ha.

When Steve’s brother visited a few weeks ago, the two decided to use the power of two to unstack the washer and dryer. Now this is something that was on my wishlist of things to tackle, but I hadn’t quite thought about how to execute it yet. So now that it is done, time to start thinking about it.

I am officially armed with inspiration from Pinterest - Simply Grove, House of Turquoise, and Better Homes and Gardens.

As it was, the washer and dryer were stacked in the little closet and turned at a 90 degree angle, so you actually needed to step into the closet and maneuver in a little 2×2 space. Not ideal. Especially since I could not reach into the dryer all of the way because I am too short.

So…. viola! We have unstacked machines.

So much easier to use and it allows for storage up top! yay!

I actually think that the previous owners just didn’t measure the washer and dryer before they bought the, because they clearly don’t fit. In order to close the doors to the closet, the washer and dryer need to be angled slightly inwards. Not a huge problem. We just need to put a flat piece of wood on top of it so socks don’t go into the great abyss that is my closet.

And then there are storage issues. Where is the storage? Nope. There is none. Nothing that Lowes can’t handle. We will put some white wire shelves up there. I think the shelves are only $7 each plus the accessories. Right up our alley.

And lastly there is the color. Bleh! This putrid greed was actually the color of the entire bathroom before we repainted. Yuk! So that clearly needs to be redone. I am actually loving the stripes in the above picture. Maybe I will do something similar??? Oh ambition…

So that is my/our plan for our little laundry area. We’ll keep your updated.

~C+S