laundry room makeover

I'm not one who is super into painting every room in the house. I like mostly neutral walls with the color being added in with accessories. However, before we moved into our house last May, I had already decided that I was going to paint the laundry room. It's a small and mostly unimportant room, so I figured even if the color turned out to be crazy, it wouldn't matter too much!

In order to make things easy, I painted the room before we had our washer and dryer delivered. Since I'm the one who does the laundry, the laundry room is basically considered my room; however, it's still our house, so I tried to make sure Russ was on board with my color choice. I wanted a very subtle bluish-mint. I imagined something like this:

via

When I found the color I wanted, Russ said it looked way too light and that I should do the color underneath on the swatch sheet. I was worried that his choice would be way too dark, and I let Russ know about my concerns, but he seemed to really think it needed to be the darker one, so I decided to just do what he wanted.

Unfortunately, that was a big mistake! Haha I love Russ, but I really should have gone with my gut on this one, because I wanted subtle, and it turned out not subtle at all. Additionally, although I had thought it wouldn't matter too much if the color was off, it turns out it did. I really hated that color for the whole year. Below are some pictures of the color I first painted the laundry room. The color doesn't look horrible in a few of the pictures, but the ones where it looks kind of green more accurately portray the color and why I disliked it so much. The pictures also show our temporary hanging solution, as well as messy washer/dryer tops because I had no place to conceal anything.

BEFORE:

So when we were finally going to put in a cabinet and some permanent hanging rods, I decided it was now or never for re-painting, and I chose now! This meant we had to move the washer and dryer and everything else out of the room, so our hallway was basically un-navigable for about a week! . . . if only we'd done it right the first time :) Anyway, below are three color swatches. The first is the original color I painted the room. The second is the lighter version that I originally wanted to paint the room. And the third is the color I actually painted the room this time around, which I found independently of looking at the old swatch. It was funny to me how similar colors 2 & 3 are.

behr crystal rapids

behr spring frost 

behr (home decorators collection) soft mint

It took 2 coats of primer plus 3 times of cutting in to fully prime the walls for the lighter color, but luckily only 1 coat and 1 cut in of the actual paint color. I got worried when I started painting the new color -- I didn't want to invest all this work just to hate it again, and it seemed so much darker than I had imagined! But luckily, once it was all finished, I liked the color MUCH better, and found that it was exactly what I had imagined in the first place. Oh, and it turned out that Russ liked the color, too :)

We installed a cupboard to hide all the laundry detergents and ironing supplies, as well as three hanging rods since I hang pretty much all of my clothes (and a fair amount of Russ's clothes) to dry. I did some of the measuring for the placement of these things, but Russ did all the hard work, so I'm suuuuper grateful for him. I absolutely LOVE how the room turned out, and, per usual, it's my favorite room in the house right now (because I always feel that way after finishing up a room). It looks so clean and bright and fresh! The only change we're contemplating making is installing shelves above the top two rods, since that middle support thing is made to support a shelf. If we do this, I'll use that area to add some decor :)

AFTER:

one of my favorite parts? that glass-looking hex knob right there. love it!

Now that this room is done and completely checked off my list, I can maybe start thinking about the nursery! (Though the yard is another competing option). Yay for getting things done and making our home exactly what we want :)

source list:

Cupboard - IKEA, $64

Cupboard knob - Home Depot, $5

Chevron basket thing - Ross, ~$7

Ironing board hooks - Walmart, ??

Ironing board - Bed, Bath & Beyond, ??

Hanging rods, supports, cuppy end things, hardware - Home Depot, $70

Paint, primer, miscellaneous paint supplies - Home Depot, $50

TOTAL: ~$200

*We originally thought about having cabinetry and rods installed by the people who did our kitchen. With our original design (which included lower cabinetry and a granite countertop instead of a lower hanging rod), the quote was about $1500, so we were quite happy with our $200 alternative :)