Laundry room reveal

Time for the big laundry room reveal! I'm so glad this room is complete. Or well, complete enough for now. There are a few tweaks I'd like to make at some point. But we'll get to that soon enough.

First the sad little before:

Read all about installing the cabinets and board and batten here.

Now come on in to see our laundry room...its just off the kitchen:

On a whim one day I bought that rug for the laundry room. With this house and decorating, I have normally been very intentional with my purchases. As in, I've given everything a good amount of thought and then tried to find whatever decorative element I had already dreamed up in my head. This rug, not so much. But I guess that day I was just drawn to the fun colors, which was one thing I had already decided: I wanted the laundry room to be fun.

So this rug provided the jumping off point for colors. I went back and forth between painting it a spring green color (similar to the color in the rug) or grey. In the end, I decided to go with grey, because I felt it would flow better with the teal walls in the kitchen.

The teal and grey are very soothing together. Plus, I really like the way the white pops against the grey. That was really my goal with the paint color: to have the crisp white cabinets really pop.

Doesn't Nick's board and batten project look great? It definitely gives off a "mudroom" vibe to me. Not bad for a practice project!

The wall art was where I really wanted to play up the playful vibe in this room.

I will admit that the "Keep calm and carry on" thing has been overplayed a bit lately, but its what kept coming to mind, so I went with it. I thought it was an appropriate message not only because don't we all need encouraging words while doing chores such as the laundry? And since this room is connected to the garage, it is also the room where we enter/leave multiple times each day. I figure I can use that advice before setting out to conquer the world every day.

Since I wanted a specific color palette (and I am cheap), I decided to recreate the poster myself using Adobe Illustrator, then print it as an 8x10 on the photo machine at Walmart. Not a bad replica, eh?

I got the idea for the second poster from an Etsy product which takes the "Keep calm and..." idea and does all sorts of versions (Keep calm and eat a cupcake, keep calm and kayak on, keep calm and love pigs...etc. I'm not making these up!). One version said "Keep calm and wash on" with a rendering of an old faucet. I liked the basic idea, so I created my own faucet in Illustrator, then wrote "Wash. Rinse. Repeat" under it.

I am pretty pleased with the wall art. It added just the right pop of green to the space.

Also in keeping with the fun vibe, I wanted to find some whimsical wall hooks. I found these little bumblebees in the garden section of Hobby Lobby. They were a brass (which I actually really liked in that finish). I spray painted them white to fit better with this space.

Finally, let me call your attention to the amazing crown moulding Nick installed on top of the cabinets. That ain't easy folks. Major props to my husband! It really takes these standard cabinets to the next level.

So you may ask, what is it that still needs to be tweaked? In this picture you can pretty much see the top four things:

Numero Uno: See that gap between the cabinet and the wall? We need to add a board there so it will look more "built-in." This will be an easy fix. Just need to do it.

Second: Now that its up on the wall, I just feel that my cute little bumblebee hooks need more oomph. My plan is to attach them to a rectangular piece of wood. I can't decide whether to make the rectangle green and keep the hooks white, or vice versa. Suggestions welcome!

Third: One day we will add drawer pulls/knobs to these cabinets and the kitchen cabinets. Someday...

Fourth: You can't really see this in the picture (unless you look really close in the upper middle), but I would like to add crown moulding to the ceiling for a more finished look. My plan is for this to be the guinea pig room for our upcoming crown moulding projects. I am also still debating whether or not to paint the ceiling. I didn't paint it grey for fear of it seeming wayyy too dark. But I'm not crazy about the stark white ceiling either.

As I was typing this, the idea just hit me to paint the ceiling green. Hmmm... and maybe add a fun mini-chandilier, just for kicks. Stay tuned...