A Little Crafty: Before and After--Laundry Room

So remember all the plans I had for the week my older kids were gone and my youngest was in someone else's care for approximately 12 hours? Yeah. I had big plans. The good news is, that I achieved several of them. The bad news is, that the things left on the list are still on the list and several more have been added. As they say, "No rest for the wicked, and the righteous don't need none!" (You must utter this sentence in a southern drawl for best effect.)

I painted my laundry room and got it all fixed up. It's purty. I figure that since it's a room that I spend plenty of time in, it should be pleasant.

This laundry room is a far cry above the one in our old house. I'm not sure you could really call the one in our old house a room. It was a pass-through between the kitchen and garage and it also held our coats, backpacks, cleats, and various and sundry other items that couldn't find a home. All of that in about a 6'x6' space with two doors that opened inward. As our family room grew, that laundry room became the bane of my existence.

When we looked at this house, I nearly swooned with excitement. The laundry room was an actual room! With a window! And a laundry sink! And cabinets! And a counter for folding clothes! You could actually fit more than one person at a time in the laundry room--kind of nice when children are putting laundry in the baskets or taking clean laundry to their rooms. No more queueing up! Also? My laundry room is located on the second floor. I know! Swoon!! I actually have room for laundry baskets in this laundry room. In our old house, the laundry baskets had to sit outside the door, in the kitchen and my children would abscond with them and use them for forts and cars and other wonderfully imaginative things. Normally this would be pleasing to me, but when I was trying to empty clothes from the dryer to fold and couldn't find a basket to save my life, it made me crazy crazier than usual.

So the laundry room at Casa Sara is wonderfully full of features. Nice, right? Yes. But it was painted the dull and boring and not-very-durable builder's white. Blecchh! (Please ignore the flooring. I try to. Whoever installed the vinyl in this house didn't know what they were doing because it is all coming away from the walls and needs to be replaced. So someday, the flooring will come up and tile will go down. But for now, it's better than walking on plywood.) Wanna see?

See? Boring, boring, boring.

Very functional, but not very pretty.

Then, I found some bargain paint. I paid $10 for a gallon of mistint paint. It was a nice pale yellow in an eggshell finish--perfect for my purposes. It turned out pretty. And cheerful--nice when I'm spending so much time in that room.

On a trip to GW, I found this little stereo cabinet for $15. It was wood and pretty solid, so it came home with me.
This is how it looks now in my laundry room. I love it! I found the basket on top and the Ball jar on a recent GW trip. (Sorry. The cabinet isn't crooked, but this is the photographic result of the photographer trying to take a picture while squashed down under the counter while trying to avoid a sniffing, hyperactive dog...)So here it is! My purty new laundry room!

Everything on top of my cabinets either came from GW or I already had.

The paper-towel holder and the bottles in it are all GW finds. The baskets over the sink were mine and being used elsewhere. I decided that they'd be put to better use here.

This little tray started out Kelly green. Then I painted it black thinking that I'd use it in my kitchen. But after some thought, I sprayed it blue, hot glued some magnets to buttons and turned it into a note board. It will come in handy for receipts and things that I find in pockets. Alternatively, I just might put little notes under every button that say "It's someone else's turn to do all this laundry!!"

This shelf and bottle came from GW. I filled it with buttons I already had. I think it looks sweet.

This started out as a mirror when I found it at GW. It was bright blue. I liked the funky shaped frame, so I brought it home. Then I sprayed it white. Then I changed my mind as the laundry room evolved and resprayed it blue and gave it some swipes with copper craft paint. In the middle I taped scrapbook paper (taped, so I can remove it later if I want to do something else with it.) and then glued some of my old buttons on it. Then I placed a glass knob on the bottom where it just had an ugly screw sticking out.

I love this room now! I think it looks kind of "beachy." It just makes me smile every time I go in it. Plus, I was able to finish it in about a day, which fit nicely into my time frame last week. It makes my husband smile because I redid the whole room for right around $50 dollars. Not bad for everything that's in there!

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I've got some laundry to do...

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