New Laundry Room Art

A couple weekends ago I bought some new 'art' for the laundry room.  I thought it could look cool to have a collage of vintage laundry stuff.  Here's what we started with.

This week at good ole Hobby Lobby all wall decor was 50% off.  So we bought four more signs.  The most I paid for one was $4.50!  Sweet!  This is what we have so far.

 

I've also found a sign that says: Laundry Room, Drop your pants here.  I love it...hilarious!  Maybe I'll crack and order it.  I'll keep you updated on any other additions to the laundry room. 

Lesson 64-Laundry Room Reveal

The suspense is over. Today I'm revealing the final chapter in our laundry room saga. I know, I know, it's been quite the cliff-hanger. So with out further ado...

Some pictures from along the way.

Our new shelf to hold extra crap...er, stuff.

The new color. Laura Ashley's Moss 4 in semi-gloss purchased at Lowe's for approx $45/gallon. For some odd reason we splurged on paint for such a tiny room. Doesn't really make sense, but I like the color.

Our altered blinds from Target online purchased for about $40.00 including S & H.

New rug from Target for about $15.

Tin sign with a vintage feel from Hobby Lobby 50% off costing $5.

Total for laundry room redo: $105.00.
Now if only front loaders were in the budget...


Linking to:

Lesson 59-Hiding Our Stuff

In the continuing saga of redoing our laundry room, I bring you the storage function the room provides. Which brings me to pose the question: does one ever have the right amount of the storage room. I feel like I'm always in need of just a little more storage space. But maybe what I'm really needing is less stuff. Hmmm...

Anyways, back to the laundry room. When I moved in the laundry room had only one shelf above the washer and dryer. All I could think was what about all the unused space. It had such good storage potential. So...Husband and I made a trip to Home Depot (or Lowe's--when they're just across the street from each other it's hard for me to keep them apart) and bought some wood. Then Husband had his padre come over to help put in a new shelf. But let's be honest, my father-in-law did most of the work. Husband was just there really for moral support--and to look pretty. Sorry for the lack of photos, but I was at work and apparently men don't see the need for photographic documentation of projects.

So we now had double the storage space in the laundry room. Hurray!!! But with more storage came the problem of more visible stuff. Boo!!! A double-edged sword really. So taking some inspiration from J & S at YHL and hang blinds to hide our clutter. After searching stores and the 'net I finally found one at Target.com and it was on sale! Sweet! Minor problem: it was too long.
But I had no worries. I measured and marked on the blinds the length I needed, plus a few inches and started cutting the excess off. With the extra few slats I rolled them up and hot glued them in place both to get the final length I wanted and to prevent the blinds to continue to unravel.

And in case your wondering even after altering the length we have no issues using the string to roll the blinds up and down for easy access.
So after the painting was done, the washer and dryer (freshly cleaned) were back in place, my father-in-law returned to help hang. Again there are no pictures of this task since I was at work. Do you see a pattern emerging? And the result: love at first sight. It was such a great touch and I LOVE that it hides everything we store up there.

For other projects done on the laundry room:
Click here
and
Here

And I'll be back next week with the final product.

Lesson 54-Cleaning the Laundry Room

The next step is making the laundry room one of the best looking rooms in the house was a good ol' fashioned cleaning. Have I mentioned that this was once a bachelor pad? Would you like to imagine what it looked like? Or you can just look at this picture:

Yuck, right?!

So aside from the obvious floor cleaning that needed to be done. I figured this would be a good time to clean the washer and dryer as well. I first took the vacuum and cleaned the dryer vent in the wall. Apparently this also helps the efficiency of the dryer and we're all for being energy efficient and 'green'. To get the dust from under the lid of the washer I took a paper towel and Vaseline. The dust sticks to the Vaseline like no other. Genius, really. Next up, vinegar. I ran a cup of vinegar through the washer to clean that out. I also took the lint trap out of the dryer and ran 1/2 vinegar 1/2 water through it to completely free it of any lint.

So now not only did our laundry room get a cosmetic face-lift, but the washer and dryer got some much needed TLC as well. Do you have any cleaning tips for laundry rooms?

Lesson 49- Laundry Room Unplugged!

Ok, so it's not near as cool as MTV Unplugged! (Does anyone even remember that show?) And it certainly isn't my favorite room in the house, but that doesn't mean it has to stay that way! Luckily for me, that dear hubby of mine was okay with me redoing the laundry room and attempting to make it as exciting as the golden age of Music Television. The first step was removing the washing machine and dryer. This was a job for Mr. Muscles, also known as my hubbs.

While moving the appliances to their temporary home (the scrapbooking room and hallway--awkward much!) we discovered that perhaps it wasn't as straight forward as it seemed. So I decided to write this blog for anyone who might discover the same thing in their process of making the laundry room their favorite room in the house.

1) Pull the washer away from the wall and unplug the power cord.
2) Turn off both water supplies behind the machine (hot and cold). Make sure they are tight so water doesn't leak out.
3) A bucket or towel can be placed underneath the water source if water is leaking out.
4) Disconnect the washing machine from the water source on the wall.
5) Carefully move the washing machine to its temporary home. A dolly will be Mr. Muscles BFF.


Just reverse those steps when you're ready to have everything plugged back in. Pretty easy once you figure our what you're doing.

And of course this is one of those posts where I slacked on pictures. Sorry! But while you're using your imagination to see the our washer and dryer in hall and scrapbooking room, maybe you can also come up with who killed the video-star. Anyone else miss Carson Daly and TRL? I guess this post could also be an ode to dead MTV shows. Oh the memories...

source: MTV