Laundry Room Makeover: Reveal

If you have a huge laundry room, good for you. I may or may not be extremely jealous of you.

I, for one, have a teensy tiny laundry room that also doubles as a mud room, random home improvement products and housewares storage room, garden center, and school stuff dropoff. It hasn't been very attractive for many years (if ever)...here's proof.

Although it's far from the laundry room of my dreams, it's now functional and organized and simple and, dare I say, even a little bit pretty.

Directly to the right of the doorway (barely visible in the photo below), I painted the back of a corner shelves/hooks unit to match the walls and added some grey fabric storage cubes. Each of our children has one to throw their bike helmets and lunch boxes and whatever-else-makes-their-hearts-sing into because, hey, no one can see it!

If you recall, we previously had some lame-length curtains hanging here that were constantly attracting dryer lint and getting in the way of the kids' hooks. No bueno. So I took part of one of the panels from my living room drapes FAIL (read all about it here) to create a laundry room window shade WIN. It only took about an hour one afternoon while I watched a What Not To Wear rerun. I absolutely love the funky coral fabric in this space.

Next up: the floor.

Check it (and more!) out after the break.

I don't love the tile floor in here and had visions of painting it completely for a super dramatic change. But because (a) I'm busy and (b) I'm sometimes lazy (not necessarily an oxy moron), I decided to paint chunky stripes on an old rug instead. Because I'm a sucker for free one-hour projects like that. Oh, and also? A painted rug is the perfect thing for a laundry room (not even kidding) because you can mop it or vacuum it or sweep it, whatever's easiest at the moment.

Hung some hooks behind the door, and all of a sudden the ironing board has a home! (Judging by my enthusiasm for ironing, the next time it will likely leave said home will be in 2019. Stay tuned.)

This awkward shelf is mounted right above the door, toward the cupboards. Frankly, I was tempted to remove it altogether because it's just so...weird. But then I realized I really really needed this shelf to store old rags and paper towels and used pnut butter jars that will one day hold delicious strawberry jam. So it stayed. Because...mmmmm...jam.

This totally jimmy-rigged clothes hanging rod made from two curtain holders and a half wooden curtain rod stayed also. It did get a bit glammed up with some gold spray paint. Fancy.

After pulling out all the cupboard stuff and organizing it, I was able to see what types and sizes of containers we'd need. Here's what we ended up with...

...a little random mix, but it's totally and completely functional for my family's stuff. Perfect. I actually thought about adding in some labels for the baskets, something chalkboardy on the walls, and maybe some more tchotchkes, but after some thought, I really didn't want or need any of that. So, although the room probably seems a little boring via photograph, it really is a reflection of a space we need and use...minus a 10-gallon drum of peanut m&ms. Dang. Next time I'll work that into the design for sure.

A reader suggested mounting hooks onto the wall instead of building a drying rack. Genius and easy! And cute! These will be well used during the winter months when soggy gloves, hats, and scarves find their way into this room.

 Ummm...I think I already talked about everything that's in the photo below, but I guess this means we've come full-circle? Oh, wait. Here's something. I spray painted the old garbage can in the very corner, see it there? It used to be one of those metal popcorn cans that you get at Christmas time, complete with some snowmen and random holiday pics. Three or four thin layers of red spray paint later, and the (now) red trash can looks like it's supposed to be in the space...even if it's not December. We'll all need a few months to adjust to that change.

So, yeah. My laundry room makeover is complete. It's such a small space, it's hard to photograph. I love it.

My fantastic husband came home the other day and saw this room. "Wow, hon, it looks great! You did a lot of work." I tried to convince him that, actually, I did everything as quickly and as simply as possible, and it (truly) wasn't that big of a deal. Him: "No way. That room didn't put itself together. Looks awesome."

HE'S awesome. 

I will agree, though. Compared to what it was a week or two ago, the room's improved quite a bit, in both form and function. And the only cost was for the storage containers, about $100 in all. 

Win and win.

If you're interested in e-touring the rest of my home (in all its incomplete and never-ever-finished glory), feel free to check out my house tour. Also feel free to send me cookies. Either/or.

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