This post is about our yearlong DIY laundry room reno, so if you’re 100% NOT interested in home DIY, this post might not be for you. 🙂 Not photography related, but HEY it’s my blog. It’s a glorious thing.
It’s no secret that I love a good house project. Jake has always been handy and a sucker for some good construction, but it all started to go downhill in 2020 when I decided that I, too, wanted to man handle some power tools. We were locked in the house during Covid times, with a newborn, and while I’m generally OKAY with our house, I’ve never been obsessed with it. So we decided to use the time at home as an opportunity to turn our space into a place we could love. I became a little manic watching DIY accounts on Instagram and convinced Jake to buy me some new saws and that was the beginning of the end.
Over the course of 2022 (omg an ENTIRE YEAR) we slowly, SLOWLY worked our way through remodeling our laundry room. It was in rough shape when we moved in back in 2018, and we were craving some extra storage. Here’s a picture of the laundry room when we bought the house.
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Here is a list of the things we did!
- Ripped out previous cabinets and the drop ceiling above the washer/dryer and replaced them with new cabinets from Prime Cabinetry
- Removed and replaced all baseboards + trim
- Busted out the floor tiles and replaced them with floor that almost matched the rest of the house (the tile in the rest of the house is discontinued so we bought as close a match as we could find and hoped for the best)
- Created a beadboard accent wall with pegs to hang bags and keys
- Built a corner floor-to-ceiling cabinet for extra storage (SO MUCH STORAGE!) – bought the doors from Cabinet Doors
- Painted the room (the beadboard + trim in Ultra White, the walls in SW White Duck)
- Got bored and repainted the room (everything SW Retreat)
- Painted the corner cabinet (Ultra White to match the washer/dryer cabinets as best we could)
- Used these knobs and pulls on the cabinets – I love them!
- Didn’t want to scrape the popcorn ceiling, so we opted to drywall over it. Was it the best decision, IDK but here we are
- Wallpapered the ceiling (and lost our damn minds in the process)
- Replaced the light fixture with this beauty
- Added moulding around the ceiling
- Replaced the doorknob
- Hung a wooden dowel to connect between cabinets, for hang drying clothes
- Tiled a backsplash behind the washer + dryer
- Built a shelf above washer + dryer for easy access to laundry detergent (and to hide outlets, hoses, etc.)
- Added a little DIY herringbone pattern to the laundry room door
If you’re here for the pictures, I don’t blame you – feel free to scroll and check it all out. If you’re interested in some more details about the process, keep reading! It’s not in chronological order, so don’t get confused. 🙂
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This whole project started when our laundry room flooded. Three times. We clearly had some plumbing issues. After Jake found the problem and fixed it (my hero), we said “Well… I guess the laundry room is next.” One day when Jake was at work. I got tired of looking at the HORRIBLE baseboards in our laundry room, so I ripped them out. Now we had no choice but to keep moving. Works every time…
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I did an Instagram poll and the VAST majority of people voted against our decision to paint the room monochromatic. And I get it – it’s trendy and can be an acquired taste. My choice to do it anyway was mostly because I’M SO BORED. The rest of our house is almost entirely white. I love it, and I don’t want to change any of that. But I wanted to make one BOLD decision, to have one space that felt like a risk. And I’m so glad I did. It was the perfect kick in the butt I needed.
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I tiled the backsplash behind the washer + dryer one day while Jake was at work. We had all the tiles leftover from when previous owners remodeled the kitchen. So this was an extremely low cost project. It was my first time tiling, and I thought it was fun!
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The stain on the shelf + the drying rod didn’t turn out exactly how I envisioned… I was hoping for something a little more natural and less red-toned, but it was one of those moments where “good enough” was good enough.
The floor-to-ceiling cabinet is all thanks to Jake. When I told him I wanted a cabinet there, I was expecting to buy one… they were SO expensive, so Jake suggested we build it ourselves. He created a plan, and walked me through how we would do it. I told him I didn’t like it, and I suggested another way to do it because I’m a know it all who watches DIYers on Instagram and think I can do anything. (He’s a patient soul. Love you, boo.) Needless to say, we went with his plan and it turned out perfectly.
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The wallpaper on the ceiling was something that came to me a little later on in the process. I kept it to myself for a while, not sure if Jake would be down for it since the project was already taking us so long. But when we got close to finishing, I could tell he was also looking at the ceiling. The popcorn ceiling was ruining the whole space for me. So I pitched the idea and he loved it. You guys….wallpapering that ceiling was MISERABLE. I don’t know if it was the wallpaper experience in general that I hated (it was my first time with wallpaper), or if doing it on the ceiling is what made it so unenjoyable. Regardless, we were so frustrated and so DONE with it, that we were no longer looking for perfection. There are definitely problem spots, and it doesn’t look amazing. But, it does achieve my vision and I’m happy we did it. The light fixture and the wallpaper compliment each other beautifully. Just don’t look too closely.
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We are so happy with how the space turned out. All that’s left is… I need to buy a new rug. And a new clothes hamper. Don’t tell Jake. If you follow along on Instagram, please know that your messages + encouragement make every project we do extra fun. xoxo!
