Project: Laundry Room

We moved into our new house on March 9th. Unfortunately, we have not gotten anything done around the house that we have on our list. There is just not enough time or money most of the time! I had "organize the laundry room" on my to-do list for this week, and once I got started, I just couldn't stop. I wish I had a "before" picture of the laundry room, so you could see just how hot of a mess it actually was. Stuff was piled on the shelf, on top of the dryer, and the floor. There was barely any room to function in there, and it was still the ugly contractor's grade paint original to the house. Needless to say, the room didn't really scream "come in here and do your laundry!" So, since I spend so much time in there, I figured it needed some sprucing.

This project should have cost about $30.

But, as we all know (or will quickly learn), no project ever costs the amount you expect.

Unfortunately, that was true in this case. I bought a quart of paint, thinking that it would easily cover one small wall. I was wrong, and had to buy another quart. Should have just bought a gallon, but oh well. You live, you learn.

So anyway, this whole project started just because I needed to organize. I had a gift card to Target, so I went and took advantage of some of their back to school sales and bought some great black crates in two sizes. Then I cleaned up the shelf, and organized everything into the crates. I also bought some shower curtain hooks, because those things are useful for tons of things. I used them to hang rolls of tape, lint rollers, and my new cool dollar store bucket, which is now holding my clothes pins that used to be just in a plastic bag.

I thought my organization looked so nice that I might as well spruce the rest of the room up. I pleaded my case with Jason, who so kindly looked at the budget and said that I could indeed get some paint, fabric, and a couple of dollar store picture frames. Thanks to JoAnn's coupons, I was able to save some money on the fabric for the curtains, phew!

All in all, the whole project cost:
4 Crates at Target: about $11
Bucket: $1
3 Picture Frames: $3
Turquoise Spray Paint: about $3
Fabric for curtains: about $17
"Cosmic Berry" paint: $26 :( stupid paint and it's lack of coverage. sigh.

Total Cost: just over $60. The whole thing was supposed to cost about $30, and I would have been super proud of myself. But, alas, I failed. Oh well. $60 still isn't that much in the grand scheme of things to make my laundry room a fun(ish) place to be.

View from the door--LOVE that paint color!

I found the printable on the left on Pinterest, and made the other one myself. The frames were from the dollar store, spray painted turquoise.

The curtains took about an hour to make--I love the pretty black and white pattern. The frame is another dollar store painted one, and says "Check your pockets." I hung it above a little crate we already had, for misc things that end up in my dryer :) I used shower curtain hooks to hand up rolls of tape that we have, which you can sort of see on the right side of the photo, under the black crate.

This shelf used to be a hot mess of shoe boxes full of random stuff, and piles of rags and junk. The black crates help keep things organized, and my spray bottles of wrinkle release and febreeze are now easily accessible. 

Yay! Feels good to have a room done the way I like it. Now I have the "itch" to do other rooms, but I know they will have to wait. I'm thinking the next room we do will probably be our bedroom...hoping to get some new bedding for my birthday. We'll see ;)