Laundry Room Makeover

Around here, summer means tackling all those home improvement projects I've spent the winter months plotting. Of course, we only get to a fraction of what I have envisioned, but it's a start.

One of the things we've been gradually working on is re-doing our laundry room. It started out as a "I just want to repaint it honey," and like many of my projects, quickly grew into a whole host of things I wanted to change. Now if I had unlimited money to spend and an ever-ready pool of expert laborers at my beck and call, all those daydreams would be entirely attainable. Trying to accomplish that on a budget, with only one skilled laborer (my sweet husband) and one makes-more-work-for-everyone laborer (that would be me) and it's something of a challenge. But we're both learning as we go, and there's a great deal more satisfaction in a completed project when it's the product of our own sweat equity and bargain-minded innovations.

As you all know, hideous before pictures are an absolute necessity in order to properly appreciate the unveiling of the after pictures. Because the "after" is still a work-in-progress, I'll be posting those as we finish up the room in the next couple weeks. For now, here are a few before shots of what I not-so-fondly recall as the "baby-poop yellow" laundry room I inherited with the house:
Besides the color which made me infinitely crabby just looking at it (did I mention my mother fully embraced the 70s palette of olive green, dull orange, and baby-poop yellow thus triggering a full-out cringe factor whenever I see said colors?), there were several problems with the room.

1. Storage space - although there were a few haphazard shelves, they didn't provide much in the way of storage. And what they did provide was on full display- not the most attractive option in my book.


2. Aesthetics - There was nothing to tie the room together. Instead of looking like a pleasant, finished space, the laundry room looked like precisely what it was: a thrown together closet devoted to piles of dirty clothes. Ick.

3. Lighting - There was one tiny recessed light that, combined with the color, made the room dreary and dark.


4. Wasted Space - Because the door opened into the room, a lot of otherwise useful space was wasted. When you're dealing with a small room, every inch of usable space makes a difference. As you can see in the above picture, half of the wall was taken up by the open door. The other half was used for hanging hats, yes hats. Great use of space there, huh?


Stay tuned to see some of our solutions and the finished laundry room makeover!