Pinterest is full of wonderful and amazing laundry room makeovers. And I’ll be honest with you, I’m jealous! I would love to have one of those huge laundry rooms with all of the storage and wall space for cute things. Instead, I have a little pass through from the garage to the rest of the house that can barely be classified as a room. This room not only holds my washer and dryer but has a closet that houses my heater. I’ve updated it from a builder basic laundry room to something with a little more character and something I love.
Here’s how it looked before I really started to change things up:
Oh, that ugly builder basic golden oak! I hate it so much!
Some time ago I sewed that curtain above the cabinets to get me a little extra concealed storage. The fabric was from a sheet I’ve had for forever and it just happened to match the wall color perfectly! I had an old shower curtain tension rod hanging out in the garage and used it to hold it in place. This was such an easy fix to hide some of my stuff I don’t access all the time. You can’t really see it in this picture but the floor is peel and stick tiles. The floor used to be covered in linoleum. Not long after I moved in I was dog sitting and put the dog in this little room. The dog tore a big ol’ hole in the floor! Angry is a mild description of how I was feeling. This dog also dug more holes than I can count in my yard and destroyed my fence. But I digress. My dad pulled up the linoleum and put down the peel and stick tiles as a temporary solution that lasted 7 years. Oh, and that basket? I thought it would be handy to have a place to throw the lint and dryer sheets nearby. This was not the best or most attractive solution and didn’t really work that well. It was replaced with a small trashcan in the heater closet.
First things first, I HAD to get rid of that golden oak! I hated it so much that I actually considered completely replacing all of my cabinets even though there was no way I could afford it. Painting wasn’t an option because my parents ingrained in me as a kid that you never paint oak. (Edit: if you have painted oak, I don’t hold it against you. It can look really good. Painted cabinets, whatever they are made of, just aren’t my thing though.) Then one day I found this blog post on Pinterest.
It was just what I was looking for! Instead of Java, I went with General Finishes Antique Walnut gel stain. I followed Monica’s directions and it worked like a dream.
I might add that this was my first time to stain anything ever and I just so happened to start on a huge project of every single cabinet in the house. I may not be that smart sometimes.
I also painted all of the trim in the house white as well as replaced the golden oak hollow core doors with paneled doors I painted white.
The safety pin décor came from Ballard Designs.
Since this is the pass through from the garage to the house, I got into a bad habit of setting all kinds of things on top of the washer and dryer. Between stuff that needed to go to the garage and the stuff that needed to go somewhere in the house, it was a mess. I decided to install a shelf over the back of the washer and dryer to help alleviate the piles. I bought a 1×10 and cut it down to fit in the space. This width fit perfectly in the space between the wall and the machines. I went with a 1×10 instead of a 2×10 to give me a little extra space between the shelf and the bottom of the cabinets, even if it’s only 3/4 of an inch. As I talked about in my master bedroom redo, I adore the industrial look. I used the iron brackets I talked about in the bedroom post for this shelf because they look great and they would not interfere with the machines.
I stained the board with the same stain I used for the cabinets. It looks so good!
One a trip to Walmart one day, I found some wire baskets that would be great for the shelf to help corral smaller items. They were only $2 each! The only issue is that they were white.
I just turned to my old standby and used my favorite spray paint – Rustoleum oil rubbed bronze.
I love the look of the old (or new made to look old) swimming pool/locker style baskets but they can get pretty pricey. This was a super inexpensive way to recreate that look.
The next task was to finally replace that peel and stick tile. For a long time, I have been in love with brick indoors. I have wanted so badly to find a way to incorporate in my home but I never could think of the right place. Until I saw this picture, that is…
That floor is gorgeous! I knew I had to recreate it. You don’t know this but I’ve only ever tiled anything once before when I put in a backsplash in my kitchen. But I was determined to do this myself. I was able to find some brick tiles from Old Mill Thin Brick. They have many different color collections and they can be ordered from The Home Depot and Lowe’s. I went with the Castle Gate collection.
Here’s a better picture of the floor I wanted to replace.
I scraped up all of the peel and stick tiles and began laying the brick tile like the inspiration picture. With it all completed, I’m thrilled and in love with it! I cover how I installed it here.
Excuse me while I get a little artistic with my picture taking.
Anyway, you guys just want to see the whole thing put back together. As a reminder, here’s what I started with.
Here’s the finished product.
It’s so, so nice and so not builder basic anymore! You might notice a washer and dryer upgrade too. That was a nice bonus. I unfortunately had to replace my rug with a solid color rug because it was way too busy. There is only one thing I have left to do in here and that is to add crown moulding. It is my plan to add the moudling on every wall in the house but that will be done as I have time over a long period.
What’s your favorite part of the makeover? How do you handle storage (or lack of) in small laundry rooms?
