Two weekends ago my husband and I set out to redo the small laundry room in the home. It was my birthday gift that he help me, because otherwise I doubt this project would have landed high on his to-do list. The room prior was white (the only non orange room in the home!) with white laminate cabinets with a few holes in the back, not visible when the doors were closed. The wall was filthy, partially my fault because I was spraying paint all over when washing out my brushes and pans. A large hole was in the wall on the right side that I patched months ago in preparation for eventual painting.
Here she is before-
I decided to have some fun with this room since it was so much smaller than any other room I had painted before. Rather than making life easy on myself I decided to use Frogtape to stripe the wall with a few shades of greay I had leftover. One was a sage-y grey called Sedate Gray and the other was Pebble Grey, the same color as 3 other rooms. The white was Dover White, which is a tad more tan than a pure white. With textured walls I had to make sure the tape was nice and smooth for a straight line and no bleeds so I took a tennis ball and pressed over each line very hard. This resulted in beautiful and perfect lines!
Now here she is After-
For the cabinets we spent over an hour measuring and analyzing the cabinets at my favorite store, Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The vision was to find a set that would work to mount a bar between so that I could hang certain things right out of the dryer. This set was $95 and is all wood with the slow close feature. They look brand new. Knowing I was losing the bar I used to have to make room for shelves this was something I needed so we mounted them about 8 inches apart.
Another must was hanging the laundry baskets from a slot rail system with arms to keep the small amount of space I had on the floor clear, and the tops of the washer and dryer clean. Steven found this rail system at Home Depot for a reasonable price, and the baskets are smaller than standard and sold from Target. I couldn’t have mounted my larger baskets and had the cabinets where I needed them too. My husband also replaced the old utility sink faucet with a new one that has a removable spray handle. That would have been used heavily while I was a painting fiend but it is good to have now too.
The room isn’t finished yet. Our kitchen is not equipped with a pantry and we have been struggling with food storage. Right now remodeling the kitchen and installing a pantry isn’t in our budget and the cabinets are relatively new. Instead I decided to add shelving to the back wall of the laundry room for larger food items and things we don’t reach for often. That hasn’t been installed yet but i imagine it will look like this with a set of two sliding doors.
I’m also looking to add a shelf above the washer and dryer to hide the outlet and duct that are exposed now. This is a professional artist’s rendering.
That is one of those things I’ve started doing since working on the house so much. I photoshop in furniture items and rugs or paint colors just to make sure I really understand how it will look. It has been a lifesaver. I did this before I purchased the credenza for our entryway, I shopped the Octopus from the bathroom wall to see what color would look good, and I did the same for the stripes on the laundry room wall. It doesn’t have to look amazing, it just needs to give you an idea. Photoshop can save you a lot of money and heartache if you find out you don’t want something based on your rendering.
After painting the laundry room and our master bathroom I am now completely finished with painting the house walls! I still have some door trim work left and the closets but… I’m celebrating!
