A little while ago I posted pictures of all the paint colors we've changed in the whole house so far, which included the laundry room. I've painted a couple other spots in the room since then, though, and I wanted to highlight the changes since we moved in. I have a few key changes left to make, but they're very low priority and probably won't happen for a while. So rather than wait until the room is completely done to show you, I'll just show you its progress as of now.
When we moved in, there was either an ancient washer or an ancient dryer, but I can't remember which because it was hauled away pretty quickly when our new washer and dryer were delivered. (Have I mentioned yet how expensive buying a house is?) The laundry room space is awkward because it's also the stairway to the basement, it's the path to get to the garage, and there's an additional door to outside. So it's an awesome space because it's tiled and perfect for a mudroom, what with the exterior and garage entrances, but it's not the most open and functional layout. It's really more of a catch-all, afterthought room. It is, though, pretty great for keeping the dog bowls out of my kitchen and Captain's trail of water bowl slobber off my hardwood.
There's a perfect little nook for the washer and dryer, slightly wider than the washer and dryer themselves. (Part of the awkward space of this room is that there just isn't a good place to stand to take a decent picture.) I decided I wanted to spread them out and leave the empty space in the middle, like you see here. My plan then was to fill that middle space with a little storage unit and to top the washer and dryer with a counter top for folding clothes. We found a reasonably attractive - and very cheap - laminate counter top in the very back of Home Depot. We put a rubber matting down on top of the appliances in order to help protect them from the counter top and help keep noise down during any instances of the dryer shaking and vibrating. My dad and the hubs built an extremely solid wood frame that the counter top ultimately was attached to, and the whole thing floats attached to the wall a fraction of an inch above the washer and dryer to also help limit damage and noise.
A small shelving unit I've had since high school sits perfectly in that space and holds laundry supplies not frequently used, and there's a hamper that sits in front of the shelves that stores random towels and rags that get dirtied in between laundry days.
Now that we've got that part taken care of, here are some other before shots.
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It's an awkward space, right? You can kind of see the door to the garage in the far right side of the top shot, and that other door leads to outside. Right now it just leads to the yard but in a couple summers when we redo the deck we'll incorporate that door as well. The rest is easy enough to figure out I guess. White walls, and kind of a forgotten space. The basement's not finished so we don't go down there too often right now, the garage doesn't have any cars in it yet, we use the other back door, and I only do laundry so much with it just being the two of us. So pretty much the primary users of this space are the dogs, and hubs when he's doing a lot of work in the mud outside and has to come inside this way. It doesn't have to be too pretty, honestly. And this is how it stayed for several months until the end of July when I got itchy to start painting and remembered that I had left over gray and mint from the guest room and book room. I knew I didn't have that much, but I figured I'd see how far I could stretch it. My plan was to paint almost everything gray but make the wall behind the washer and dryer and the wall behind the slop sink the mint green. That's basically what happened, except that I didn't have nearly as much mint left as I thought so it ended up being the wall behind the washer and dryer and a tiny part of the pass through wall. And that's fine for now. (Yes, I have plans to change it one day and I even have the paint that I want to use, but I'm honestly painted out right now and it will require buying primer so it's a project for the future.) We did end up having to buy a ton more gray because of the horrible shape of the walls, but paint is cheap.
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| Having a slop sink means your cool counter top that was meant for folding clothes actually becomes the spot where all the paint and paint supplies are stored for a couple months. And your slop sink gets disgusting. |
It is a dark color, and it's a whole lot of wall space to cover in such a dark color, but I think it works. A ton of natural light comes in through that door which brightens it up, but I'm really just such a fan of anything other than white walls so any color would be a huge step up from what it was.
From the first wall I painted in this space, the part that struck me that most was how awesome the gray looks against the white trim and white door to the garage. I know that the trim and doors are the same white in the guest room, where this color came from, but I think it was something about dressing this space up specifically that really hit me. I loved it so much, because it made the whole space look intentional and clean. Sharp, even. So when I finished painting all the walls and took a step back, all I could see was that wood piece in the pass through window and how bad it looked against the gray. It needed to be white like the trim. I was super excited about coming to this conclusion and made a mental note to get that done at some point...and then I turned around. And saw the enormous railing system around the staircase. With all those stupid spindles. Which was also wood, and which would also logically have to be painted white.
Here's the part where I explain what my family reading this already knows: I really, truly, and completely hate painting railings and spindles. Every summer for as long as I can remember (even though it probably started sometime in high school) I was my dad's personal slave from June till August. I power washed the whole house, the shed, and the shop every summer. I painted all their exterior doors, including the doors to the shed and the shop, every summer. I painted the floorboards of the front porch every summer. And yup, you guessed it, I painted the railings and spindles of their front porch every summer. (To be fair...some summers I was able to skip the spindles. But those were rare.) There was literally nothing I whined about, dreaded, and hated more than those blasted spindles. Their front porch is huge. And I will admit that I've done my fair share of bragging about the fact that A. as a married woman I'm not on their work load anymore, B. my house is now brick and therefore never needs to be power washed, and C. my front porch has no spindles. So you can imagine how exceedingly bummed I was to realize I needed to someday paint this stupid staircase in my laundry room.
The day came. Even though I wanted so badly to get away with two coats, it took three. I sucked it up, I did it, I hated almost every minute of it, but it's done and I survived.
And it looks fantastic.
I painted the whole railing system you see there, including the floor boards and the first stair which was wood, the wood in the pass through looking into the laundry area, and the wood from the support structure Dad and hubs put in under the counter top. You can't really tell from these pictures but I still need to paint the hand railing down the stairs, but after that it will all be done. And honestly, it looks so good. So much cleaner and fresher and, like I said before, intentional. And even though this is a mud room/basement stairs/dog food area/laundry room, I like that.
I said before that my plans with this room aren't done, but for now I'm really happy with it.
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