Laundry Room Makeover

Starting in April of this year, we embarked on a series of updates to our house including the kitchen, upstairs guest bathroom, and the laundry room. While we still have a bit more to go, all of those updates are now finished and we are very happy with the results! 

Project SNOOP-ervisor, Lily Marie

 

 Of those three rooms, the laundry room probably gets the award for the biggest transformation because it had received the least amount of attention over the years. It's kind of like when I took our family dog Bob to obedience class many moons ago. He graduated "Most Improved Dog" because he was starting at the lowest point!

Our house was built in 1991 and the laundry room still featured the original laminate flooring, builder-grade cabinets, and countertops. The only change we had made to the laundry room over the years was the gold paint. I loved it for many years but it had begun to feel heavy and dated. 

 

In some houses, visitors never see the laundry room but that's not the case at ours. The laundry room is the way into our house for anyone who comes through the garage. Suffice it to say, the laundry room was past due for an update.

 Knowing we planned a more costly update in the kitchen, we looked for ways to save money in the laundry room but still create a nice look. The first step in the process was to replace the flooring with a wood-look planking. We found a moderately priced product we both liked. From the minute it was installed, it made a huge difference in the appearance!

 

 After the floor, we focused on cabinets. Again, we didn't want to spend a lot of money on custom cabinets. We found several affordable and in-stock options for cabinets and hardware at the big box stores.

 

The new cabinets are close in size to the old ones but they just feel so much fresher! After unloading them, I took the opportunity to go through all the stuff in each cupboard and only put back what we need. It was crazy how much weird stuff was stored in the laundry room cupboards!

 

Of course, we had to replace the old laminate countertop. Because we needed such a small amount, we initially looked for a remnant but didn't find anything we liked. Eventually our contractor recommended a countertop shop. We found the owner very helpful and ended up buying the same countertop for both the laundry room and the upstairs bathroom. It's not exactly what I would have envisioned when we started this project but I absolutely love it!

In this photo you can also see the hardware we selected for the laundry room. In both the laundry room and the kitchen, we added "bin pulls" to all the drawers. It's a little detail that I think makes a big difference in the overall appearance.

The last step in the process was paint. We engaged a painting firm to tackle all three rooms: The kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room -- walls and woodwork. Applying neutral paint and changing the woodwork from golden oak to a creamy white made a HUGE difference. 

We also ended up replacing the window in the laundry room (along with several others) due to exterior wood rot. The new window looks and works great.

I couldn't be happier with how the laundry room turned out! It's such a bright and clean space now and I'm not ashamed for visitors to walk through it. I'm so glad we finally took the plunge and made these updates to our house!

In upcoming posts, I'll share more about our guest bathroom and kitchen update. Things have been hopping around here this year!

Thanks for stopping by!

JP