One of the first rooms we started redoing in the foreclosure house was the laundry room. Yes, the laundry room. I know, it seems odd but when you figure how much time you spend in there plus it’s a relatively small room (thus “easy” project to tackle), it made sense.
We actually started in February and while I’ve shared glimpses on Instagram, I’m just now sharing the full photos here. All because I was trying to make it a tad prettier before I got around to nice photos.
To appreciate how far the room has come, here is a before picture taken during one of our visits the month prior to buying:
Not bad. But rather bland.
First step was painting. I knew I wanted to brighten the room up and had a quart of light yellow paint on hand so I started with that painting the upper third of the room.
I hung beadboard wallpaper on the lower two thirds. (Note: we had some leftover from the cat drawer project at our old house – the adhesive was no longer good. My advice, buy what you need. Use it. Then toss any leftover. I wasted a lot of time hanging old paper that fell off a short time later and then had to start all over.) And we replaced a cracked outlet we discovered when I removed the faceplate during wallpapering.
Then Trent helped me cut 1x boards and nail them to the walls to extend the original trim around the entire room. This makes a nice separation between the paint and wallpaper.
Along the wall with the door, we added 3 hooks. I can’t say enough about how glad I am we did this. We use these hooks constantly.
Because I still have my “no wasted space” mantra from our last house, I even put to use the space behind the door. This is where we store our lint trap cleaner, mop, broom & dustpan.
Not really fancy stuff but necessary and neat, tidy & unseen in this location. Plus easily accessible when needed.
Finally, I have been “prettying up” the shelf. As it is an open shelf, all the clutter of stuff tossed up there was making me a little crazy when I walked in the room. With a little reorganizing, clearing of stuff that didn’t belong (box of cables? Not really necessary in the laundry room), and addition of two new baskets – the shelf is orderly and the room feels far more peaceful when you enter.
That’s the full completion of the first phase of the laundry room. Yes, I have plans to further alter this room like adding a sink. But that’s for another day. One project at a time.
Sources: Lowes – 1x trim boards, Style Selections Beadboard Paintable Wallpaper, Olympic white semi-gloss paint; Home Depot – Glidden Soft Candlelight eggshell paint; Target – Threshold Heavy Coat and Hat Hooks, ClosetMaid fabric bins; Marshalls and HomeGoods – baskets; large blue mason jar thrifted; Container Store – Mop & Broom Organizer.
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