Laundry Room Update

Isn’t it such a joy to take something ugly and turn it into something beautiful? It is for me. Seriously, I get giddy with excitement. It’s actually a little bit ridiculous :) But that is how this whole laundry room project feels to me. I feel a bit giddy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have been waiting so long for this to happen and now it finally is and I love the way it is turning out. I have to keep poking my head into the laundry to take a look at the progress and then pinch myself that it really is getting better. And, soon it will be done! Yay!!

Last time I left you with the before shots and that was it. There weren’t any shots to show you what was to come (except for a few sneak peeks here and there). First of all, I will show you the inspiration:

This was the bathroom that did it for me. I love the simplicity and the black and white color scheme. I already knew that I wanted it to be black and white. I also knew that we would be covering the nasty walls and make it look like wainscoting. But this photo made me itch to paint the floors black. I mean, really bad :) It wasn’t too hard to talk Jason into it! Here is our process so far…

I don’t have any photos because it was so dirty, but first Jason had to do all of the drywalling. It’s a no-fun dusty job. I’m so thankful he took care of that part! The rest of our house had white foot prints throughout but it was so worth it! Then Jason moved onto putting up the paneling and trim. The paneling came already primed which is why it’s blue.

Haha! I caught him in the act of cutting some molding on our driveway. It’s our make-shift shop. We were thankful for the decent weather we had last week even though it was cold at times.

The laundry room, paneling and some of the trim hung.

Then he added the floor molding and the corner pieces. We had lots of holes to putty as well :)

Fixing the door trim that we had taken off at some point. You can see in this photo that for a while there I thought about painting the wall behind the sink gold, and I even tried it a bit. But in the end, I decided to stick with the black and white and I painted over it. I’m really glad I chose the white.

After giving the room a good scrub, I primed the walls and ceiling…

We also painted the floors black just like I wanted. I really love them! Then, we covered them with rugs so we could continue working in there.

On Tuesday, my Dad came and helped us out for a few hours. We are so glad he did! The toilet sits really close to the wall. So close that there really wasn’t room to even add the paneling behind the tank. So my Dad, being the master craftsman that he is, made the cuts to the paneling so it looks like it goes behind the tank but it really doesn’t. Plus, he whipped it out in no time flat. Jason and I both are so happy he came to help with that part! Thanks Dad!

My job is mostly just painting. I got all of the upper walls and ceilings painted and started working on the paneling. First I concentrated on the sink wall and washer/dryer wall because that was where Jason needed to work next but the walls had to be painted first. As of today I still have some other painting left but those two spots are completely done :)

We started working on the crown molding but didn’t get it finished before we had to move the washer and dryer back in place. We desperately needed to do some laundry and we had a deadline to get as much finished as we could because my brother came into town and we wanted to be able to spend the whole next week with him and not with the laundry room! So, we will take a little break on our work and pick up where we left off later.

For now, that is pretty much where it stands although there are a few more things finished which I will show you later. For now, we are just enjoying the time with my brother and then at the end of this week I will be going to Oregon with my Mom for a little vacation to see the rest of the family. When I get back, we will hopefully be able to wrap up the rest of this project! On one hand, I really wished we could have finished it before Brett got here. On the other hand, it’s nice to have a break because we were putting a lot of hours into it. When I get back from vacation, I will be really ready to pick up that paint brush and finish up!

This poor humpty dumpty is getting put back together again. And I’m thankful for that!