Laundry room

Laundry Room Makeover

One of my Home Goals for 2012 is to get organized. From the picture below, you can see why! I probably should be horrified to show you this “before” picture, but this is my life. To know me is to love me with all my messy, unorganized flaws.

I decided I wanted to do the laundry room make over on a budget, using materials I already had. My BFF gave me almost a whole gallon of paint that was left over from a project I helped her with. I had shutters in my garage that I picked up from Habitat Restore for $5.00 and last week I purchased metal brackets from Habitat just ‘cuz they were $2.00 each. I’m ready to roll!

I keep paint cans in the laundry room so they don’t dry out from heat or cold in the garage. Not pretty to look at!

More paint stored on top of the cabinet. This cabinet is the only storage in the laundry room.

Ugh! More junk. All the pool paraphernalia are stored in here.

Not sure what I was thinking with this paint color and the valance. And how lovely are those baseball hats!??

The walls are repainted a light blue. So much happier than the green. Looks very fresh and clean.

This is one of the shutters I purchased at Habitat Restore. It’s 15 inches wide. Perfect for a shelf.

My $2.00 brackets from Habitat. I saw the same ones at Lowes for $7.00 each! I love a bargain!!

See?? $2.00!

I attached the brackets on each end of the shutter and one in the middle. The brackets are attached to the wall with anchors.

I found an old curtain rod and put it through the scrollies in the brackets. Woohoo! Now I have a rod to hang clothes on. This was an unexpected bonus!

Yeah! The hangers fit!

My paint collection doesn’t look so awful up high and in plastic containers. Home Depot has plastic containers in various sizes to store left over paint. And yes, that is Gatorade bottles filled with paint. Just trying to do my part in recycling! My car trunk is now full of paint cans ready to be disposed of properly.

Still need to get a few things for the laundry room. More shelves would be wonderful and maybe some storage bins and artwork. Do I love my laundry room now? YES! Does it make me want to do laundry? HECK NO! Laundry still sucks no matter what your laundry room looks like! But at least it looks more organized and inviting to walk into.

If you have any brilliant ideas on how to organize a laundry room, I would love to hear! Still have oodles of shoes to contend with, and all my mops and brooms are shoved in a corner right now. I don’t want to resort to my old ways… if a messy room has a door, then shut it and run! ; )

By Laurie|February 23rd, 2012|DIY (you can do it!)|6 Comments

Happy in a Can (paint can that is!)

It’s amazing what one gallon of paint can do. It’s like HAPPY in a can. And the perfect color of paint is like ON CLOUD NINE in a can! No kidding! I get teased a lot for always “painting something” in my house. But the end result of just a couple of hours of work is amazing.

My BFF and I have been friends for almost 2 decades. She has humored me through all my house changes and even participated in many rearrangements of furniture, accessories and has picked out paint colors with me. And she’s great at it. She is a designer after all. But in her own house, she hasn’t changed much in a very very long time. I know! It’s shocking ! Ha! She has a very busy Hubby and she doesn’t tackle paint on her own. (Yet I still love her.) So today, with one gallon of paint, we painted her kids bathroom and the laundry room in a day. Less than a day. Less than a school day actually! And she even had a paint brush in her hand. And used it! (That information is for her unbelieving hubby.) We bought a shower curtain, shower rod and hooks, toothbrush holder (at HomeGoods), and paint at Home Depot all for under $100.00! Her bathroom and laundry rooms are totally transformed. And while a gallon of paint can’t solve the problems of the world, it can, for very little money, change the mood and spirit of a girl and a room (or two). AND it was fun!

I haven’t mastered taking good pictures yet! This is the color we used. It doesn’t show up in my pictures as stunning as it really is.

Benjamin Moore HC150 Yarmouth Blue

BFF painting. I’m so proud! The old color was a light salmon in the bathroom.

Laundry room. It had the original builders paint for (gulp!) more than a decade. : 0

By Laurie|January 13th, 2012|DIY (you can do it!)|2 Comments

Entryway Ideas

The interior of my house was just painted and now I’m reluctant to put anything back on the walls. So not like me! But the walls look so lovely without the scars of Laurie and her hammer and nails. When I took the pictures down for the painters, I think I actually felt the wind blowing through the holes I left behind. I know my husband was shocked at all the nail holes in the walls. (But he didn’t say a word!) Just for the record though, I am quite handy with spackle and paint, but if the holes don’t show after the next arrangement goes up, no one knows what’s under there but me. ; )

Anyway, I would like to do something with the garage door entryway. It’s the door everyone uses to come in and it’s also the hallway to the laundry room. I would like the wall to have hooks for book bags, umbrellas and keys plus storage for other things. It’s too narrow for a bench, so I need to think vertical. So that’s my next project and yeah for me… it’s in air conditioning! Not that I’m a wimp or anything! : )

I found some pictures of entryways for some inspiration.