Favorite Project of 2009? Laundry Room Re-Do

Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality is hosting a Top Projects of 2009 as a showcase of all of our best projects over this past year. Hands down my favorite project has to be the Laundry Room that my husband and I redid. It is really one of the first projects that I blogged about and really helped renew my interest in improving our house. And it is so fitting that Rhoda is hosting this Showcase because she is the of writer of the blog Southern Hospitality that inspired me enough to take action! And she inspired me with this photo of her own Laundry Room.

This is the photo that started it all! This is Rhoda’s Laundry Room.

I was stunned at how “pretty” her laundry room was and if you click here: Rhoda’s Southern Hospitality Laundry Room, you can see more of it. What was so wonderful to me was how kind and encouraging Rhoda was. She told her readers how she did it and she even gave us the name of the color of paint she used! “Grass Cloth” by Behr! How could I forget. I was at Home Depot later the same day getting myself a gallon.

Here is where we started:

After 8 years of living here our laundry room was still the same “builder beige” it was the day we moved it. It was the catch all room. The dumping ground.

There was so much clutter and stuff you could barely get in it to do the the actual laundry. It was beyond UGLY!!

The best thing we did was remove the center doors of the cabinets and we turned it into a book shelf for my cookbooks. After removing the doors we needed to borrow a reciprocating saw to remove a vertical wood bar in the center that the cabinet doors met up against. First time for using that tool!

Then we got ourselves a Mitre Box (very inexpensive…I think we paid around $7.00 for it.) and some decorative trim molding that we painted black and we framed the center section with it. It is my favorite part of the room. We also used the Mitre Box to cut the skinnier trim molding and painted it white to frame each of the cabinet doors. We used “Liquid Nails” to attach all the molding to the cabinets. New door knobs as well to finish them off.

I found a piece of decorative trim that I painted black and we used “Liquid Nails” to attach it to the front of the sink.

I was able to decorate the top of the cabinets completely with items from my storage room that I loved but couldn’t find a home for until the laundry room re-do presented itself!

And finally a place for my basket of red geraniums.

And all those sports schedules that I use to tape to the cabinets…I now tape them to the inside of the cabinet doors…accessible but out of sight.

Of course the fun part of any room is when it starts to come together with the decorating and accessorizing. A new valence for the window, and I made some art collages for the walls, and I found a beautiful hand painted floor cloth with the black and white checks that I love saving us, at least for now, from re-tiling the floor with black and white tiles. (That is another project for another day perhaps. :)) A little bit of shopping at TJ Maxx and Hobby Lobby for the bulletin board and plate holder and I was in business!

Now I still can’t say doing the laundry is a “pleasure” but it is certainly much less painful in our finally new and improved Laundry Room.

Thanks Rhoda for hosting such a great event. It was fun to organize my many Laundry Room posts and photos all into one post. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else posts as their best for 2009.

Collage Trio in the Laundry Room

I know, you thought I said the laundry room was done. But honestly, is anything ever really....... "done"? I worked on these three mini collages last night because I found some great papers for a mere 20 cents per sheet at Hobby Lobby today and couldn't wait to see what I was going to do with them.


I began by painting all of my canvases with regular acrylic craft paint in black. While they were drying I started playing around with the papers. I cut out my papers into squares and rectangles after setting them on top of the canvas and deciding which papers I wanted where and guessed at about how big I wanted them to be. After the papers were cut out, I arranged them to how I liked they way they looked together.



Now it was time to start decoupageing. I know a lot of you have had experience doing this. But for me, I just learned not to long ago so for those of you you do not know, this is what I did. Take your "Mod Podge" and paint on a coat of it directly onto your painted canvas where your first cut out piece of paper is going to be. (Do not start this step until your base coat is dry.) Then paint a layer of "Mod Podge" on the back of your cut out paper. Carefully place an edge of your paper on the canvas and start painting the "Mod Podge" on to the cut out paper slowly smoothing out air and bubbles as you completely attached the paper to your canvas. Then add your next piece in the same way till the whole piece is done. The "Mod Podge" dries clear. Make sure you completely seal each piece of paper. Then let them dry.




After your piece has dried, you can then decide if you want to add any embellishments like adding some other colors or maybe painting on some swirls or dots. I liked how "crisp" mine looked and decided not to add anything more But if I change my mind later, I can easily add whatever I want. So here is the finished product. I think I am going to keep them on the small wall space under the cabinet above the sink. Okay, now the Laundry Room is really, really done!

And Oh, I found the bulletin board at Hobby Lobby today at 50% off. I got it for $10.00! I also found the plate rack there at half off for $7.50 and that beautiful yellow plate came from TJ Maxx on clearance for only $1.00! I bought everyone one of those plates that I could find and I am still looking for more. Total: $18.50. Big Bargain!

(Special Thanks to Rhoda at Southern Hospitality Blog for her kind words and inspiration!)

Laundry Room: Almost Done!

The Laundry Room is almost done! We spent the day today working on finishing the trim moldings. We cut and measured, and got everything painted. We used Liquid Nails to glue the trim to the outside of the cabinets. Now let me explain how gross these cabinets were to start out with. They were the lowest end laminate cabinet you can get. I wanted to remove them completely and put them out in the garage for storage and then have new cabinets installed in the laundry. But then I remembered.....oh yeah, we have a daughter leaving for college in 4 weeks! New cabinets were never going to happen.

If you want to see a "Before" photo of my Laundry Room I just added one to my Laundry Room Day 2 post.

I can't tell you how much adding the wood trim to the outside of these cabinet changed their appearance! My favorite part has to be my new cookbook shelf area. Remember from an earlier post of mine that the center area had laminate doors that we removed. We then added the wider trim with the etched leaves and beaded edge and painted it black. Gorgeous! The photo does not do it justice. We also added the wood scroll piece below the sink and painted it black as well.

It is bright and cheery now with the "Grasscloth" green color walls. ALMOST DONE! I still need to find a valance and if forced I will sew one. But I am hopeful that somewhere I can find one ready made. Any ideas where I can find a ready made valance? All advice would be appreciated! I also need a long framed picture to hang on the small piece of wall next to the dryer. I saw a black metal Eiffle Tower at Target that might work but I think a black framed print might be better. Still shopping for something to go there.

The black and white floor that is so beautiful in my inspiration photo from Rhoda's blogsite: http://southernhospitality-rhoda.blogspot.com/2008/07/happy-green-laundry-room.html is on hold for now until we find a source for the peel and stick tiles and if I can keep my husband interested in the Laundry Room Home Improvement Project long enough till we find the tiles. I will keep you posted. Many thanks to Rhoda for getting me excited and inspired by the photos and advice on her blog!

Laundry Room Day 2

Laundry Room Day 2
I played hookie from work yesterday so that I could get a start on the laundry room. My plan was to paint around the edges of the room but once I got started.......I couldn't stop! I was able to get the whole room painted except behind the washer dryer by the time my husband got home from work. He then moved the appliances away from the wall and finished painting the area behind them. It looks fantastic and very green and I love the way anything in black or white pops against it.

We keep cutting trim pieces with our new mitre box and I keep running back to the store to buy more trim. Hmmm... maybe we should have measured before we got started? The cabinet doors have called for 5 pieces of trim so far. Another light bulb went off as I was looking at the selection of available wood trim. I found the most beautiful piece of wood trim that is 2 1/2 inches wide with leaves carved into the wood and it has a beaded edge. We are going to frame the center area where the cookbooks will be housed with the wider trim and I am going to paint it black! We had a scrap piece that we had cut wrong so I grabbed it and sprayed it black as a test piece and held it up to the cabinet to see how it looked. Gorgeous! So it was back to Lowe's today for another piece of the wider trim.

While wood trim shopping I also spotted a piece of a decorative scroll cut wood. I guess the best word to describe it is "plaque" and it is extremely thin and flat. I plan to paint it black and glue to the face of the cabinet in front of the sink. So....progress is being made.!

Laundry Room: Let's Get Started

We got a good start on the Laundry Room yesterday. I took "before" pictures but have to figure out how to upload them...that's what teenagers are for....but of course I will have to wait till sometime this afternoon when then get their behinds out of bed to ask for help. Trust me, until I post them, it's an ugly room and the re-do is long over due. This photo at the right is my inspiration and what I hope I can come close to accomplishing. There are more beautiful photos to check out at at the website I have highlighted below. We cleared most of the clutter out and cleaned up the lint. My God the lint! It was everywhere. My husband and I hit Home Depot and picked up the paint. It is made by Behr and the color name is "Grasscloth". And I found some very nice oiled bronze door knobs for the cabinets and switch plate and plug covers.

Inspiration hit me as I was staring into my Laundry Room abyss right before I convinced my husband that we had some shopping to do. I have always wanted a place to keep my favorite cookbooks handy. So I thought what if we took the doors off of the middle set of cabinets? Could we do that and not tear them up in the process? Yes! We borrowed a reciprocating saw from a friend and between the screw driver and that saw, my husband was able to remove them with minimal damage. So now we will have two cabinet on each side with the center open with two shelves. A little bit of putty to fill in the holes and a bit of touch up paint is all I need.

Next stop was Lowe's for the moulding for the cabinet doors and a Mitre box. Who knew a Mitre box could be so fun and so easy?!! We came out with three pieces of narrow trim moulding with the plan to paint them white, cut them to frame the inside of each cabinet door, and attach them with "Liquid Nails". We got the pieces cut but need to go back and get two more pieces to finish the cabinet doors under the sink. I sanded the ends before I went to bed last night. Hopefully I can get them painted later today and then start painting the walls.

If you look at the photos of the room that has inspired me at this link: http://southernhospitality-rhoda.blogspot.com/2008/07/happy-green-laundry-room.html you will see a beautiful black and white floor. I want this floor. Rhoda the decorator who designed this room and shared her photos did it with peel and stick vinyl tiles and put it right over top of her existing vinyl. We shopped at both Home Depot and Lowe's yesterday and neither one had black or white tiles! Seems like such a basic product to have on hand. So anyway, the floor will take a bit more effort but in the meantime we have plenty to keep us busy.