Making my laundry room worth seeing

I realized when I was going to show my laundry room update that I never actually took any before pictures of the space. It was that uneventful. Here let me paint the picture for you, it had a washer and dryer, a little shelf thing, and two doors. One to the garage and one to the hallway. White walls, well at one time they were white. They turned a off white with lots of dirt mixed in. The trim that you could see was the same generic faux wood trim.  Yep that was it, so great I never even took any pictures.

my bright laundry room

But here we are, with a nice laundry room. I wanted to redo it because one, it was long over do and two, it was a small space so I would be done with it super fast. Yeah laziness. One  more room checked off my to do list. So what it took me half a day. It is done.

To begin I knew I wanted bright paint for the walls, I was thinking yellow. But was not so sure. There is no window in this room so I knew bringing in bright colors was needed. But isn’t using yellow to bring in light a cliche? Bring in fake brightness from the sunny yellowy wall? So I went to the paint store with no color requirements other then bright. Yep, yet another example of my plan ahead attitude. I fell in love with this color. Seascapes Green from the ultimate color collection at Menards. It was bright and cheery. And the most color I had ever put on my walls. We bought a sample came home and put it on. It was so much color, too much. With the space being small it over powered it. But I loved the color, so I went back and went with the same palate just a shade lighter. I ended on Pale sea foam. It is a little turquoise-ish. I was hesitant to have it match the many shades of turquoise I had in my house. But I figured most of the color was in the living areas, a whole hallway away.

this is a picture my Grandma painted. Weird in the laundry room but I like walking in and seeing it. This is also a great picture of the wall color

After painting the walls, and sanding the trim. Then we painted it white with three coats of paint. I had a fresh sea foam green canvas. I am originally from San Diego California. I moved to Wisconsin when I was 18, fell in love with my husband here, you know… Sitting in a tree, first comes love, next comes marriage, next comes three babies and a dog, a house in the burbs, and a mini Van with a baby carriage. You know the story. I love living in my small town here but I do miss California, and the beach. I have always wanted to incorporate some beach and ocean pictures from our many trips back to So Cal. I decided to do canvas prints. I love canvas prints or paintings on the wall. No frame, just their glory there front and center. Once that was decided, the room came together very quickly. I ordered the prints from Walgreens.com. Oh yeah, true professional status. I found an old vase, put in some fake hydrangeas for some life into the room. Fake, silk flower life. Bought a shadow box beach scene from Goodwill, I remembered I had a blue, brown and white striped rug that was in the basement. I think I originally bought it for the kitchen but it did not go. Instead of returning it I kept it “just in case”.  That it is about it. Voila room done.

I wanted to make this room as nice and clutter free as possible. It is the room we walk through to get into our house from the garage.  A lot of guests come in that way if it is snowing so they can put coats and all that in there. So a normal messy laundry room is not enjoyable or functional. It is tough enough to get my kids to move into the house anyways. Why do kids stop ten million times from getting out of the car and getting into the house? I don’t need stuff in the way too. This space is not fully done. I am in great need of replacing the light. That seems to be the last thing I do. I am so picky on the lights for some reason. I have a few in mind but none feel right yet. I also want to make some kind of shelf or something that I can hang clothes on when I am pulling them out of the dryer and hanging them up. I also want to put in tiles, possibly a dark slate tile.
It will get there. We are thisclose to having it all done. But for now, here is my until now non existent laundry room. Non existent in the ways of this blog and my home tour.

it is so hard to photograph this small space, no room

my canvas art work, a sunset and my kids dipping their feet in the ocean

this was left over when we bought the house, it fit perfectly in this nook thing. All kinds of stuff gets thrown…..I mean organized in here

the lively silk flowers. I do like this little shelf thing. And my great hamper under it, it hides all the dirty clothes

the shadow box bought at Goodwill

I like it, functional and fun. Well as fun as the laundry room can get

It has been ever existent and my least favorite room in the house. But I spend way too much time in there. At least now I can look at the big canvas’s of the beach. If I think hard enough and close my eyes I can almost smell the beach. Oh wait that is just my beach scented dryer sheets. So close!