Laundry Room Make-over

It was an episode…a brief, laundry episode.

One that should have taken thirty seconds.  I was just putting socks away, that’s all people.  Nothing to see here.  Only, the next thing I remember, I was cleaning out my entire sock drawer.  Finding all kind of hither-and-to and dress socks that I stopped wearing when loafers when out of style.  (They did, didn’t they?  Go out of style?  Or are they coming back again? Shoot me.)  I came across something that I had pushed to the back of that drawer for ten years.  A little plastic bag that in my ideal world would hold three or four perfectly folded socks and keep them from getting wet…for all the backpacking and hiking I never do, on the rainy days I don’t venture out of the house..at all.  Don’t even ask me why I kept saving that little “treasure”.  It’s total nonsense.  I have no earthly idea.

The good news of this story is that it was finally in the way. In the way of all the uh…socks…or whatever.  But still.  I had had enough of moving it around.  Don’t make me do the math on ten years.

So I pulled it out and said out loud, to no-one in particular “I’m throwing this stupid little plastic bag away!”  And so I did.  And with that small gesture, I wondered how many piles, small things, pieces of paper, odds and ends I was actually hoarding keeping for a rainy day....

Thus began my walk-through.  You know what I mean.  The walk around the house wherein you scan each room with new eyes.  The kind of eyes that look more carefully and critically on the dust, random placement of various items, and clutter.  Those eyes.  The ones that start to see small round yellow, green, and orange stickers with $.10, $.25, and “just take it” printed on them.  Uh-huh.  And I wondered aloud how many metaphoric “plastic bags” were lurking in my house. 

Then I opened the laundry room door.  Mistake. Any other day, no problem.  I’m too busy to care, any other day.  But no, no, no!  Not on the “summer fever, clean out the sock drawer, scan the whole house for crap because I’m obviously a disaster housekeeper who keeps ridiculous amounts of junk just lying around for rain hiking or whatever” day.  Not that day.

   

There was no “lurking” in here.  Everything was a disaster.  Had I really been foraging in here for ten years looking for towels, cleaning supplies, and on occasion – actually processing laundry through this forest of chaos?  For starters, it was obvious I had some crazy blanket fetish.  And clearly an unhealthy tendency to hang on to pillows WAY past their “expiration” date.  (don’t judge…you never know when you’ll need 36 gross pillows. Cough.)  There was so much wrong with my laundry room, I didn’t know where to begin.  But I think we could have all agreed – on the spot - that the bookshelf needed to go.  And the wire hangers.  Am I right?

So I decided to go on a quest to change one room of my house at time (purge, deep clean, and re-fresh the space) while not moving on to any other project until that room was done.  Being a mondo scaredy cat of said type of project, I chose the smallest space in my house with which to begin.  Clearly the room is very, very small.  It's very hard to get in and out in general - on a good day - when it's "neat" (as if!).  Whatever we did to the space, at the top of the list was "be able to get in and out without harm to self".  Ahem.

And so it is then, that the following laundry room pictorial makeover amounts to:

• a little bit of vision
• a budget coming in under $200
• a gathering of supplies
• elbow grease

Supplies

• A new storage system from IKEA – essentially some wall mounts, four shelves, and four baskets, to replace the bookshelf and various items piled high on the floor of the room.  (shakes head….)
• New light fixture from IKEA to replace the brass/globe light fixture installed by the builder
• Two canvas décor pieces for half off at our local craft store
• Paint and paint supplies

Here are the progressive pics in quick order!

   

   

   

   

I could stop right there, but I won’t – because you deserve to at least see the canvases!

And that’s it!  We are the proud owners of a workable laundry space.  Who knew?

If you need to see the horror that “was” again – go ahead and feast your eyes...

I know, I know...it's not all crazy amazing.  Truth be told, I wanted an entire chevron wall, like my switch-plate.  But it's a small budget people...you do what you can.  And I think the result is chaos to calm.  It’s like a completely different room.  And if you come over, like ever, I will no longer be embarrassed to send you in there to fetch…well, anything. 

Cause it’s all super-fly now.

It should be noted that we have the “McDonald's” of homes for our area.  No seriously.  We’re surrounded on all sides by some seriously nice abodes – and we’re living in a box with next to no character.  But it was cheap.  Whatddyagonnado? 

But enough of that box – I’m over it.  We’ve been here a decade and it’s time for a room-by-room refresher course.  I wanted to see what I could do with one small room, and I’m encouraged that I could make small changes throughout my home, on a budget, that would make each space more enjoyable.

Next stop: Master Bathroom and my head-first dive into cabinet spray-painting, grout treatment, new faucets, and a closet makeover.

After that…who knows!

I’ll let you know how many “plastic bags” I throw away…