Hi, my honeys! When you're a homebody like me, you spend a lot of time looking around your house and coming up with project ideas for each space in your home. You also spend a lot of time unnecessarily redecorating, haha, but we'll save that struggle of mine for another day! Anywho, one project that has been on the back burner for so long is our laundry room.
I see these amazing, glamorous laundry rooms all over Pinterest and dream of a day we could afford to add cabinets and countertops to the space. However, we are having to stay very budget cautious these days, so a full, pricey makeover wasn't in the cards. That doesn't mean we can't spend a little money to fix it up and make it a place we actually want to spend time in. Also, my parents were recently in town to clean out our garage, so now our laundry room hallway will be used as a second entrance to our home from the garage. Therefore, the dingy, dirty, and cluttered laundry/hallway space wasn't gonna cut it anymore!
Here is the before and after of our laundry room/entry hallway, and then I'll give you all the details on the makeover! FYI, the "after" photos are all without my rose toned Instagram filter, so you can see the true paint color on the wall! :)
BEFORE
AFTER
The first thing we desperately needed in the space was a change in paint color! When we moved into our home 4 years ago, the walls were butter yellow (gross), and I made a rash decision on a robin's egg blue paint for the space just because I was sick of seeing the yellow. We hired our brother-in-law to paint the space, and when he was done, I was like "dangit"--I knew I had selected the wrong shade of blue. It never matched with our floor tiles and was just too bright for my taste. We figured we'd just leave it for awhile and repaint it again someday. That someday came 4 years later, LOL!
I reached out to Clare paint, a super cool, very innovate paint company that lets you shop for paint and supplies online and have it all delivered to your door! You can even get some paint swatches if you're unsure about a color. The shades of paint on their site were curated by an interior designer, and let me tell you these are some stunning, rich shades! Clare was kind enough to send us the paint for this project, so we selected their milky white, dreamy shade called Whipped for our laundry room. I knew it would dramatically brighten up the hallway and give the illusion of more space throughout the whole space. It is definitely an off -white color, but does NOT read as yellow. I have no idea why I have something against yellow, but I do, haha! I also loved that we could purchase all the painting supplies on their site as well including painter's tape, a metal tray, rollers, roller covers, extension pole, and more! All of that gets shipped to your door, so no lugging paint cans and supplies around a store and into and out of your car! You're also not staring at 5,000 shades of white in the store trying to decide which white is white enough, LOL! Love you Clare paint, you genius company you!
We opted to hire a professional to paint the space because there was some patchwork involved and lots of weird wall angles. We had a section of the drywall randomly collapse a couple years ago because of poor installation (perks of living in a flipped house), and our painter was able to repair the wall and make it look like new! He did an excellent job with the painting, and we were totally thrilled with our paint color selection. Our painter loved the supplies we got from Clare and the paint and primer quality!
Next up, we replaced all the lighting and outlet covers in the space. We had your good 'ole fashioned BOOB lights, and I couldn't stand to look at them anymore, LOL! I opted for a simple ceiling light near the garage door, and we selected a Poly & Bark globe light and matching sconce for the other two fixtures! I love how they coordinate with each other without being too matchy-matchy! The outlet covers were the dreaded builder grade beige, so we swapped them all out for black metal covers!
Next, we HAD to add storage because our home has literally no extra closets anywhere! I found Ikea shoe cabinets to store shoes but also extra cleaning supplies. I added THESE cute, cheap wood and resin knobs from Amazon to tie in some wood elements. I also grabbed some Ikea shelves, some cheap baskets from HomeGoods, and the most adorable vintage laundry carts from HomeSense. Your girl had a gift card and nearly peed her pants with excitement finding these laundry carts at a cheaper price than online! I will say, though, THESE laundry carts are worth the price, because they're so sturdy and the baskets are made of thick canvas, not that cheap tote bag material most laundry sorters come with.
Then, it came time for all the decorative details. You might think, "Decorations in a laundry room? Why?"--this is also serving as an entrance to our home, so I wanted it to be inviting. Also, I find that if you make rooms you spend time doing chores in cute, you'll want to be in the room to do the chores more. I'm just trying to trick my mind into thinking laundry is fun, okay? Anyway, we added two of THESE supper cute rug runners from Poly and Bark, a giant black mirror I found on clearance at TJMaxx, a Philodendron plant that thrives in low light, storage jars for laundry essentials, wall frames with wall prints from Etsy including THIS "Alexa Fold the Laundry" print that I saw my girl Regan use in her laundry room makeover on her page @thebloomingnest, and a few little knick knacks here and there. I highly recommend you shop your home ftirst before you buy any new knick knacks or decor pieces! I was able to pull from other rooms that were cluttered with decor to bring in a few pieces into this space! We also added a cute little letter wall feature with some $3 pieces of basswood and some black wood letters from Joann Fabrics! We attached the basswood to the wall with Gorilla Glue brand 3M tape!
Overall, I'm thrilled with how the project turned out! No, it's not like the fancy Pinterest laundry rooms I see that literally look nicer than my kitchen, but it's a huge improvement from the dingy, awkward-colored, busted wall laundry space it used to be. I'd really like to thank Clare and Poly & Bark for collaborating with me on this project. I'd also like to encourage you to improve upon a room in your home, even on a tight budget. It's amazing how adding a few updates to a room in your home can boost your mood and make you feel lighter. You don't have to have a zillion dollars to make your place look fabulous, just a little creativity! Maybe someday I'll have that dream laundry room space, but there's something to be said about loving the space you're in now! I hope you enjoyed this mini-makeover; please let me know if you'd like to see more makeovers like this one! I've linked all of the products we've used below, so you can shop by clicking on the linked titles below!
12) Fringed Basket
16) Wood Wall Frames
17) Storage Jars
18) Striped Vase
