Laundry Room Reveal

Finally after weeks of teasing you, its here!!! The Laundry Room reveal! The baskets arrived on Friday and I could barely contain myself from posting the reveal that very day. I can't describe what a good feeling it was to finally finish another room in the house. And all by myself! Painting and everything. Patting myself on the back right now. It was so fun to look at the room as a blank slate, imagine all the different ways to make it new and pretty and then turn the dream into a reality. I might have a new addiction. I could not be happier with the outcome and I can't wait to do the same thing to every other room in the house! I won't leave you in suspense any longer. Here are the before and after photos.

Before:





See my mountain of a laundry pile? Yeah, that was my "system".


Whoever owned this house before had all these cheapy, wirey things hanging all over. Those had to go.


The one thing I did like about the room before is that it had these nice Elfa shelves on one side.....note, on ONE side. I hate it when things don't match!


I had everything organized into sections that made sense (at least to me), but it just didn't look nice. And then after some paint and some hard work........


AFTER!!!!:

Above the door to the laundry room I placed (and correct me if I'm wrong people. Please! Don't let me be the idiot who got it wrong and said something like, poop) the French word for "Wash". I kind of decided to go for a French theme and thought this would be a great sign above the door that was a little different than the common, "Wash" letters.

The first thing that had to be done was to paint the room. A pale Robin's Egg Blue, of course. What else?There were dents and dings all over the place. So I got to use that pink spackle-y stuff for the first time. That was fun. Oh yeah and painting behind the washer and dryer? Lets just say I pulled out some acrobatics I didn't know I had, climbing over those hundreds of times. But I was committed! And just the fresh coat of paint alone made the biggest difference in the look of the room.

See the picture of the Eiffel tower back there? When I was dreaming up designs for the room, the one thing that I wanted to accomplish was the feeling of getting away when I stood there folding laundry. I started imagining places I would love to think of when matching those annoying socks. I thought of French women hanging their laundry on clotheslines outside their windows to dry and I thought, "Yeah, no one could be unhappy doing laundry in France." Why? Because they are in FRANCE! duh! So I knew then that I had to find the perfect picture that I could look at while folding and be transported to one of the most beautiful places in the world. I love this one that I found on allposters.com. One, because it is not the typical photo of the Eiffel tower and two, because it is looking up at it, as if I really WAS hanging laundry on clotheslines under it. 

Here you can see my new baskets (yes the one's that held up this post for so long) from World Market. I really struggled to find baskets that fit well into the shelving that was already installed. I bought some larger ones first, but they ended up just looking monstrously huge and overwhelming. Then there was really no middle option between those and these ones. I do like that they are "chicken wire". I think I will end up making my own liners for the baskets. Something white and with a ruffle, (a little more Frenchy) but for now they work great. Its just so nice not to see all the ugly things inside of the baskets. It just makes the whole room look more polished and put together. I would also like to make some chalkboard tags to attach on each basket. Although I know exactly what's inside each one, I think my husband would appreciate the labels.

These baskets I got from Container Store. Once again, I want everything they have in there! I love this natural color of basket and they fit into the space perfectly!

 My utility sink. I don't know WHAT the previous owners did it that sink, but my gosh, it needed some cleaning.

Every "French" laundry room needs Lavender! I got this from a local grower. She was very sweet and gave me all kinds of tips for using it (like putting a lavender sachet in the dryer to make your clothes smell amazing) but this one is just for show.

While I was re-doing the laundry room, I found this old picture that I bought on the streets of Paris. I decided that it now belonged in my French laundry room. And I thought it was slightly ironic....you know....because dirty things get washed in the laundry room? Haha. I'm so very clever.

I found this adorable little basket on sale at Target and knew I had to get it for this project. It fits perfectly with the wall color and its the perfect size for keeping stray buttons, stain remover pens and other little lost things.

I am so proud of my diy utility tub skirt. Tutorial to come soon. How adorable is the toille print that I happened to find on sale? Perfection. It really is the statement piece of the room. Utility tubs are such eyesores! Every one of them needs a skirt! And this one is great because it is attached with velcro, so it can easily be taken down for washing. 

Underneath I hid the good ole spot bot (which gets used about every day) and the garbage can. I could have looked for a cutesy garbage, but then I never like seeing the plastic liners, so I thought it was easy enough to hide this under the skirt as well. After all, all this garbage is used for is lint!

Wondering what that thing is hanging on the left wall? Well, let me show you....

Found this idea on Pinterest and customized it to my theme. It was a really fun nap time craft. Such a fun idea for keeping those stray lost socks. I always hated having them just sit at the bottom of the laundry basket for weeks. This way, I can see what I'm missing and if the "sole mate" doesn't show up after a while, the other gets tossed.

There are my Fabric Wrapped Hangers that I showed you last month. I love them so much. They have worked great for hanging my clothes to dry. I wish I had the patience to do this to all the hangers in my closet! I have also noticed that they are great "non-slip" hangers. Bonus!

The End. Here is my laundry room saying goodbye. Hope you all enjoyed seeing my laundry room makeover and hopefully it has inspired some projects of your own! I am already working on my next room's makeover, but I won't tell you anything more than that until it is finished!