From the moment when Jesse and I bought our house mid February, we began making lists of all the things we wanted to upgrade and fix.
In the past 6 months so far, we’ve:
* upgraded all the door hardware
*added board and batten in the downstairs bathroom and painted
*painted every room except the upstairs bathroom and downstairs playroom
*stripped and stained our entire 300 sq. ft deck
* built bullet deer proof garden beds
*stripped and refinished the upstairs bathtub
* built a concrete patio outside the downstairs playroom
But our biggest accomplishment thus far has been the laundry room. Granted, we hired our contractor friend to build the wall, fix the roof (it was leaking) and cut our tiles with a wet saw. For our first house we didn’t feel comfortable messing with those kinds of projects, right off the bat (also, what we would’ve spent in tools would’ve been close to what we paid a pro!). But we painted, put up the beadboard, added shelves, and, most importantly, leveled and tiled the floor ourselves! Talk about a money saver! We paid for everything with cash and don’t owe a dime on any of it, without dipping into our savings, best of all!
The financial breakdown (because I know you’re wondering):
Wall construction and insulation: $900
Paint: Leftover from our master bedroom, Behr Offshore Mist
Leveling Concrete: $80
Tile and supplies: $200 (we got a 99 cents/sq ft deal! They are Trafficmaster Ceramic)
Tile Cutting: $100
Roof Repair: $400
As for the furniture:
Hutch: $100 from Craigslist, painted in Silver Behr mixed with plaster of paris (for the chalk paint), lined with green paper from the dollar store
Ikea Desk: $10 from a garage sale
Ikea Expedit Bench: Leftover from our townhouse dining room table
Bench pad: Leftover as well, although I believe we paid $20 for it back then
Fabric for curtains and bench pad: $30 from fabric.com
Shelves: $50 melamine board from Home Depot
Various bins and baskets: $30 total from Ross and garage sales (remember the playboy bunny bucket?)
Laundry Basket Holders: $50 worth of materials from Home Depot
6 Laundry Baskets: $15 total (big deal at Big Lots)
Apothecary drawers: Birthday Gift two years ago from Amazon
Farmhouse Lamp and Edison Bulb: Barn Light Electric
Vintage Shelving unit: $30 at an antique store in Paso Robles
You can read about our decision to build this room out of the garage, and the steps leading up to the finished laundry room here, here, here,and here.
Now, for the pictures!!!
View from the kitchen into the laundry room
Laundry Station
My cleaning minions
Directly opposite the washer/dryer is my folding station
Only professional signs for us
Clean folded laundry on the left sorted by room in the house, dirty on the right pre-sorted by color
Old books from England, bookends from my brother’s Navy travels in South Africa
Related posts
 Kitchen Updates– We Have Progress! |
 House Tour: Downstairs Bathroom |
 Laundry Room Progress |
House Tour #1 |
Can I get your contractor’s info? My husband tore down a wall in our laundry room, took off the trim and did a few more things and its been a disaster zone for over a year now… I have an anxiety attack every time I look at it and I spend so much time washing laundry I’d love to have a lovely space. I think it’s time to bring in a professional! Hahah. Seriously though, it looks GREAT. I love the flooring and colors you chose and I’m sure you’ll get all that money back and more if/when you sell your house. It’s so much nicer to have an actual laundry ROOM than just an after thought in a carport. Great job!
Haha, you guys crack me up 🙂
Love the growler cut in half! It all looks amazing!
Thanks! Got it at a yard sale 🙂
looks awesome! Have you guys ever thought of being professional house flippers? 🙂
Haha, I think that much DIY would be too tough on our marriage!
Hi there! Stopping by to let you know I have added your button to my side bar swap!
Your laundry room looks fantastic! I am so jealous!! I love it! XO
Kate
http://www.designermommy13.blogspot.com
Thanks! I added yours as well.
Beautiful!
Thanks, Christina!
This is amazing! What a transformation! Looks like a space I could actually enjoy doing laundry in! 😉 Thanks for linking up with Mom Lovin’! -Andrea
Thanks! Your Maui pics were beautiful, btw!
Oh my goodness this is so beautiful! I love it! I came over to check out your blog from the blog hop and I’m so glad I did! You did an amazing job setting it up, I love every single thing!
Whitney, thanks! I’m heading over the check your blog out as well!
Obsessed! About to redo our tiny little laundry room to add some character, thanks for the extra inspiration!!
Thanks! If you ever have any questions about the details of anything we did, feel free to email me! 🙂
Looks AMAZING girl! Well done!!
Thanks, Hannah!
What a bright and cheery place to do laundry! I love it! I’ll be featuring this at our next Frugal Crafty Home Blog Hop! Thank you so much for linking this up!
Thank you Carrie! I’ll be sure to check back!
Gotta be one of the prettiest laundry rooms I’ve seen. The furniture piece at the end, with the pretty background color, is so perfect. With 4 kids, you need a well functioning laundry room, right? The hooks are great too because you can hang items from a hangar to dry out if needed.
Thanks Seana! And it’s true, the hooks ARE good for hangers!
What a beautiful and happy room! Please can you tell me where the mattress/long cushion is from that’s on top of the IKEA expedit bench? I’m thinking of putting on of those on my balcony as a reading nook.
I got it at Home Depot! It’s cushioning meant for camping beds or patio furniture.
Wow I am so in love with this laundry room! Who knew a space for doing laundry could be so pretty?
Thanks, Monique!
UM, WOW! What a gorgeous room. I might actually spend time doing laundry If I had a room like that, LOL!
But then doing laundry messes up the pretty room! So it makes me NOT want to do laundry!
Wow, what a diffence! I love doing the laundry and with a room like this I think I would eat & sleep there too 😉