Laundry Room Part 2

Thanks so much for the compliments on the first wall of my laundry room makeover!  It is so much fun to add beauty to a space.  I can't wait until this room is completed!  

Here are some more Before and Afters of the rest of the space.

Before:  The back door which has an old drafty metal window in it that didn't let in much light because of the frosted panes. We sealed off the window by gluing boards to either side of the door and caulking all the way around to seal them.  It's not the prettiest but it works and it's what we could afford.  Eventually we'd love to replace the door entirely. Notice the broom and mop organizer.

After:  All clean and painted with a draft guard at the bottom.  I'm hoping to visit the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store to get a new doorknob in brushed nickel that matches the rest of the hardware in our house.  Also, the broom and mop organizer has been moved.  The plan is to add trim around the board to make it look like a picture frame.  I made several attempts at some original art work on the board but wasn't satisfied with any of them so I covered the board with another coat of primer and decided I'd rather have a cute and happy poster in the space.  Maybe something like this:

I love the colors and how cheerful and bright this one is.  I found it here on etsy.  I think it would be perfect in our laundry room!

Before:  The door the boys' room (right) and the the door to a coat closet (left).  Um, I just realized that this is kind of boring.  Oh, well!  I took the pictures and now you are forced to look at them.  And love them.

After:  Clean and painted.  The door handle is back on the closet door and we decided that since we never wore any of the coats that we stored in this closet we should donate them and turn this old coat closet into a broom closet.  So now the organizer is in there along with our vacuum cleaner, steam mop, ironing supplies, and extra cleaning supplies.  I love having it all out of sight.

Before:  The washer and dryer area.  It usually isn't that messy but it makes for a great before picture! I hated that little cabinet above the dryer.  It didn't provide much storage and it just looked out of place to me.  See all my bottles of homemade laundry soap up there?  And I used to store all my cleaning rags and cleansers in buckets balanced on top of the washer and dryer.  Even thought it was usually not that messy, that spot did act as a sort of dumping ground for items with no home.  The washer and dryer were hand-me-downs from Geary's mom.  We've had them for ten years and I'm not sure how long she had them before she gave them to us but they both still work great! 

After:  Since I didn't like the little cabinet I decided to just take it down!  I had some long shelves that used to be in the boys' closet so I hung them up temporarily.  I'd like to get some longer boards so that the open shelving goes the whole length of the washer and dryer. I also decided to keep just two containers of laundry soap (only one is shown) because it's so fast to make up a new batch and all those bottles were really taking up space.  I already had the blue baskets and now they house cleaning rags, laundry supplies,and the cleaning supplies I use most often.

One basket holds pre-measured ingredients for the laundry soap.  My next several batches are going to be made so quickly!

We don't use paper towels so we go through a lot of wash cloths and cleaning rags in a week.  In order to avoid mildew laundry from throwing wet rags into a laundry basket, I installed this hook rack so that the cloths can dry first.  I also hung up a cute picture of a woman and her daughter at an old fashioned washing machine that Aunt Lila gave to me.  Also, I use the dryer as a diaper changing station so Miles' diaper changing supplies are stacked neatly in an Ikea Trofast bin.

I'm on the hunt at thrift stores to find a wide mouth glass cannister to hold oxy-clean.  Something like the one above.

I wanted to highlight one last thing on my laundry shelf.  Geary's cousins carved this little bowl out of one piece of wood and gave it to me for Christmas last year with a cute candle inside.  I love everything about this bowl.  The fact that it's all one piece, that beautiful grain details, it's size, how smooth it is, and especially that it was handmade with me in mind.  I'm sure this little bowl will get used for lots of purposes in my lifetime but right now it's holding change, bobby pins, and whatever else gets left in our pockets.

So, that's what I have so far!  My wish list for this room is pretty short:

• New doorknob for the back door
• Happy poster and trim for the board frame
• Glass cannister
• Longer shelves
• Artwork for above the board and batten
• Oh! And a dust-buster!  You know, so the kids can help by vacuuming up all their little crumb messes without having to lug out the big vacuum cleaner multiple times a day.

It's so fun for me to be able to show our house to far away friends!  Thanks for indulging me on this little house tour.  And if you're close by, I'd love for you to come see our laundry room in person!

The Laundry Room...so far

In the ideal world I would show you my perfectly finished laundry room down to the details with artwork hung in place and perfectly staged containers of laundry soap.  But in reality, I am only part way through my project and I've run out of money so that means I have to wait until next month's installment of my home improvement budget.  Delayed gratification is a good thing, though.  It means that I have time to really think about what will work best and research for the best prices and quality. 

In this area of the house there is zero natural light, so it's really difficult to get good pictures.  But I tried my best.  Right now we'll just focus on this one wall. Here are the "befores."

Notice the two different colors of trim.  When we moved in all the trim was that tan color and all the walls were flat white.  Room by room I've been painting all the trim white.  I am nearly done.

 Oooh, sneak peak of that the little pocket bathroom.  Before and After pictures of that room will come soon.  We just have to hang a mirror and add some other little things.

 A close up of the strange orangy-tan color.  Yuck.  So glad it's gone!

And now....ta dah!  The "afters."

We really needed some place for the boys to hang their coats so we installed Board and Batten along this wall and added hooks.  It's a pretty narrow walkway so it was important that things didn't stick out too far.  Instead of traditional coat hooks I used window sash lifts.

 We have rounded corners on all the walls of our house so we ended the board and batten on the straight side of the wall and filled the seam with caulk.

We also added a little ledge for picture frames...and starfish.  I'm still searching for the perfect artwork to display above the board and batten.  Maybe that funky mirror I found treasure hunting awhile back?

This picture shows the truest representation of the wall color--at least on my monitor.  It's called Sea Anemone by Martha Stewart.  In most of the pictures it looks minty green but in person there is a slight blue-gray tint to it, too.  I love how fresh and clean it makes the space feel.  And so much brighter!

So that's what this space looks like today.  There is still more to be done but we like where this is going.  In fact, we love the board and batten so much that we're planning to do the same wall treatment (minus the hooks) on one of the walls in our kitchen, too!

Future Gratitude

Someday I'm going to look back and laugh as I remember the day, March 1, 2011, when Miles somehow managed to open a can of white paint and get white painted fingerprints all over his outfit, hair, and face.  I'm not there yet.