Laundry Room Redo

When we bought our house over two years ago, we painted every room except our office, my closet (which are both off of our bedroom), and our laundry room. The laundry room is how we enter the house from the garage and where everyone else comes in when they come over.... so it's been killing me to see it so "gross". The walls were stark white and the trim was in terrible need of a fresh coat of paint, too. The curtain that was hanging in the window above the sink was the curtain that was hanging here when we moved in. I hated that curtain, but never did anything about it. I still can't believe I never took it down. The things that were hanging on the wall were also all here before we moved in... I just plopped our stuff on the counters and called it "done" where this one room was concerned. The room was so obviously neglected. Finally, I decided it was time to get it in gear and start some home projects. I am a firm believer that we will never regret one minute, one dollar, or one drop of sweat that we spend fixing up our house. Our latest project is proof of that. I still can't believe how great the cabinets turned out. I love it.

Our house has tons of cabinets. The plus is that we have so much storage space. The negative is that they are all the 1970's faux wood laminate.

Oh man, oh man. There is no love lost between me and these laminate cabinets. It will be a happy day when we can replace them! It will also be a day in the very far-off future. Lots of cabinets mean lots of $$$$ and I can only imagine the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost to replace them all when the time comes. For now, I could just learn to live with them, I know. But as I was thinking about it one day, I felt like there had to be an affordable way to give them a face lift and help me love them. And after this makeover, love them, I do!

I started off by painting the room. Then it was time for the cabinet facelift....

For the cabinets, we decided to add some trim around the front for a raised panel feel. First, we removed the doors. We started off with pieces of 7-foot composite wood trim from Lowes. Each piece of trim was around $6.00. After we measured the doors, we cut our pieces with a 45 degree angle using the miter saw. We nailed them onto the cabinet doors using a nail gun and 3/4 inch brad nails. We filled the nail holes and any other places where our corners might not have met up perfectly with spackling. Next it was a coat of primer (the original oil-based Kiltz is what we used) and two coats of paint using a mini-foam roller. While the doors were drying I went inside and put a coat of primer on the cabinet bases and also two coats of paint. When everything was dry, we reinstalled the cabinet doors and DW installed the new hardware. The total amount of time spent on the cabinet redo was around 5 hours. The cost of the trim was right at $100.00, and since we used paint we already had, this was all we had to buy! I think it's a small, small price compared to results!

FINALLY, here's the before and afters:
I hope my pictures will stay in order.... I'm not going to go through and label them all "before" and "after"... You'll be able to tell the befores from the afters, I'm sure! (at least I hope! Ha... if it's brown cabinets & white walls, its BEFORE!!)

We also added a decorative wood piece (from Lowe's) above the sink. This was attached using wood glue, and cost us less than $7.00.

I can't believe how it has brightened up the whole room and what a more modern feel it's given the cabinets. I REALLY want to do our kitchen cabinets, and the cabinets and built-ins in our living room next! (There are LOTS of those though, so it will be a little more pricey, but I am hoping for some Lowe's gift-cards for my birthday in May! Hint! Hint!, parents!)

I also attempted my first Nester, window "mistreatments" in the laundry room.

$7.00 worth of fabric, a seam using my hot glue gun, and some upholstery tacks and I had two curtains!

I can't believe I hadn't tried this before... SO easy and I think they're great...

I also had an idea for the door.

(before)

It already had a square space on the bottom half that I thought would make a great chalk-board surface for AB. So, a couple coats of chalkboard paint and I hung a tiny watering can to hold her chalk beside it... it's been a hit for sure! She loves it!

I just love going in the laundry room now. I love that it's the first bright, cheery room that greets us (and back-door guests) when we come in the house. I am so happy that I didn't decide to just continue "living with" the old laundry room and cabinets. I can't wait to tackle another room! (DW is cringing, I am sure!)

~annie~