the biggest little makeover
March 26, 2014
People who have been to my house in the past 10 years are quite familiar with our laundry room.
Everyone uses it. It's pretty much the anti-foyer. We do have a lovely proper front door and entry. However, if people we know are coming over, we open the garage door. It's a side entry, so we often open the garage so our friends don't have to walk all the way around the house in snow or ice or rain or 180% humidity.
If you have made it to our dirty laundry passageway, you know we hold you in the highest regard.
Nothing says, 'Make yourself at home!' like a pair of Tinkerbell panties, laundry baskets, family sized jugs of laundry supplies and damp dishrags. We know how to party. Grab a basket! Want to help fold? Sorry about that smell. I've run that load twice already and keep forgetting about it.
To make things even better in there, at some point (8 years ago?) I decided to paint this tiny space a cozy baby poop brown. The original paint had been put on thickly and there were drip streaks everywhere. I'm serious. There is also a linoleum floor. We never had the energy to move the washers out to replace that flooring, so it's still there in all of its glory. {fyi:Scrubbing Bubbles makes linoleum new again. trust me.}
And I almost forgot about the ceiling fixture. At some point, the builder-grade glass dome fell and broke while I was changing the lightbulb. And we didn't replace it. So we had a bare bulb on the ceiling.
This was how we greeted and goodbye'd our loved ones for the last 10 years.
Needless so say, I knew this space needed a makeover before we could even consider selling.
- Scrub the walls
- Sand the walls
- Patch the walls
- Sand the walls.
- Paint the walls. (with leftover paint from upstairs bedroom.)
(hi.)
The walls. They needed something. They were in such bad shape from dings and scrapes and nail holes. I decided beadboard wallpaper was the solution. Got some pre-pasted stuff and Lowes and installed it myself. (2 rolls = $25/each) Easy peasy. Painted it the same color as my trim. (with paint I already had) Repainted all the trim. Added a simple railing. ($18 for three 8' pieces.)
Climbed over and around and behind and between the washer and the walls for days.
Replaced the ceiling fixture. WITH THE ONE I HAD BOUGHT 8 YEARS AGO. Geez.
Hung generic feel-good wall art that I had in storage.
Stuck a little black chair in the corner and gussied up the top of my dryer.
Friends, she looks so good now, my little mudroom made it into the video home tour in our real estate listing! I laughed out loud.
(and I wear my teal scarfshop scarf all winter. Martha, she hangs here for months for easy access.)