Home: the $25 Laundry Room facelift.

It's been awhile since I've posted a Home project. Mainly because it's been awhile since I've been able to work on house projects. The fall is my busiest time of year, and despite my original intention of getting everything in this house painted by the end of 2011, work and family came first.

I had hoped to take off a good two weeks or so around the holidays, but ended up working right up until Christmas Eve and a little the following week. Meanwhile, unfinished projects swirled through my head, making me absolutely nuts. I hate unfinished/half-finished projects. We don't have a ton to do this house, but I have more painting and lots more organizing to do. It seems that in the rush to move in, we threw piles of stuff here and there and have been slow to figure out where everything really goes.

Welcome to 2012. It's time to get it all figured out.

I started with a notebook. I have written down a project or room, one per page, and have started listing the tasks involved with getting it completed. The first thing was my gift wrap station that John gave me for Christmas. I've found that I have been keeping related items in more than one place which is time-consuming and just plain dumb. In 30 minutes I had all my gift wrapping stuff together and ready to go. Check one project off the list.

For my next project, I wanted something that I didn't have to spend much on, but would get a big bang for the buck. The laundry room has been a source of incompleteness since we moved in. It was the very first room I painted (Valspar's Water Fountain in eggshell). Like, I drove from the closing directly to this house with paint supplies in my car. It originally looked like the left:

Really? I would cry if I had to do laundry in that room. It is the saddest laundry room of all time. So I quickly pulled down the ratty metal cabinets (slightly visible, far left) and got to painting. It was a nice cheery blue and I quickly moved on to the kitchen after just one coat of paint (I had planned to paint five rooms in five days. I didn't make it). Later, John took down some cabinets on the opposite wall and installed shelving for me. It helped. So did the outdoor rug I picked up at Lowe's. That floor is just plain nasty.

But I didn't take the time to redo the paint back then (look closely and you'll see some areas where the paint looks thin). Margret told me she didn't notice the white parts of the wall. Um, I did. Also, the ceiling and laundry chute were painted in what I believe is Dingy Gray. My least favorite color. So the first thing I did this weekend after prepping the walls was to paint the ceiling and chute (Valspar's Swiss Coffee in eggshell). Ahhh. Much better.

I had also moved a cabinet in to help me with sorting laundry. I evicted it this weekend. Wasn't working for me. Sometimes you have to try and see.

But the biggest change was this side of the room. There's an old metal cabinet (maybe original to the kitchen?) that was beige on the front and aqua (the original color) on the side. And a piece of laminate countertop just lays on top. I had thought about getting rid of the cabinet but didn't have anything else to put there, plus it's convenient for John when he gives Lexi a bath in the sink. So if you can't ditch it, paint it, right?

I used (oil-based) Kilz to prime the sink base and cabinet, then painted them both Swiss Coffee (satin finish) a few times (the cabinet isn't mounted to the wall so I was able to pull it out and paint the sides). I also took a stab at cleaning the old stickers off the sink. I assumed that they must be difficult to remove after all these years, otherwise someone else would have done it. Nope. A little 409 and a paint scraper and they were history. 

The effort was well worth it. Even better after I bought a can of stainless steel finish spray paint and sprayed the countertop (it is also not mounted; I just picked it up and moved it to the garage). I looked for new cabinet hardware, but these handles are 3.5" on center, which is tough to find. I decided that I can live with them. I've certainly seen worse. The cabinet now houses my sewing supplies.

I touched up the unpainted areas of the wall, then gave everything a fresh coat. Much, much better. Above the sink I organized all dog-related items. Yes, Lexi gets purple towels. Across the room I organized all laundry, cleaning and paper products. Again, we had these things in a few different places but now they are all together. 

I also made several other small improvements: I spray painted the ceiling vent and outlet covers in Satin Nickel, I hung a clock below the long shelves, I added a doorstop so the new doorknob (that I installed -- my first!) wouldn't hit the countertop, and I spray-painted a coffee can to hold the plunger. The previous owners had left quite a fancy little homemade plunger caddy, but I opted for something more simple. You can see the old one above next to the sink base. A new light fixture had always been on my list for this room. Lucky for me my dad bought me a new one and installed it on a recent visit. The room is anything but dingy now.

I started this whole thing on New Year's Day (Sunday) and finished Tuesday. I had everything on hand, except the stainless steel finish spray paint, the doorknob, doorstop and some hooks, all of which I picked up for $25 at Lowe's this morning. And I did all the work myself. John was thrilled to be mostly excused from this one.  

I still need to get him to hang those hooks and a paper towel holder. And eventually I'd like to get a tall faucet installed on the sink. But for now we are considering this room completed. Next up? Garage organization. I can't wait until Saturday! Ready, John?