Before & After: My Laundry Room Makeover! ...and some other stuff.

Our laundry room was in sad sad shape.  It was just plain white and just plain boring.  Honestly, I hated being in there and since laundry has to be done, I decided I needed to make the space a little happier.  It is also the first room you see if entering the house from the garage...definitely time for a makeover, since first impressions are so important.  

Here are the depressing before shots:

Pretty dreadful, right?  Now for the after shots:

A few details:
1.  Paint:  Naturalist Gray, by The Freshaire choice (a Glidden brand) in semi-gloss (on sale for $14/gallon).
I agonized over painting the ceiling the same color.  After reading this article,  Why do Americans have a fascination with white ceilings?,
I was finally not feeling like I had to have a white ceiling.  I admit to doing it partly because it was so much easier, but also because I thought it would look great.  I am happy with the results.
2.  Rug:  HomeGoods $20  I needed a punch of color and also something to prevent our dog from ice skating out to the garage when we leave the house because he is deathly afraid of the vacuum.  It is a little more hidden now, but he knows it is there.  This rug makes his exit better for everyone.
3.  I added a hook (an extra one we have had for years from Pottery Barn) for his leash.  For some reason we never had a real home for it and always had to go on a hunt for it.  Now it has it's own place.
4.  The mirror by the door:  We have two.  One is here and the other one I decided to put in here with magnets for last minute messages I might need before running out.  Also not a bad idea to check your face before leaving the house.  :P
5.  The photos are from my son's first birthday photo shoot with my friend, Adrian of Canyon Photography.  Looking at his sweet face makes laundry a bit easier.
6.  Doesn't  everyone have a bowl of fake oranges in their laundry room?  ;)

It's really nothing spectacular, but I can honestly say I now love being in there and love leaving the laundry door open.  My son loves it too and likes to bring in a stack of books to look through on the rug, while I fold clothes.  :)

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When my husband goes out of town, I usually spend the time doing home projects.  While on his trip to New Orleans, I did this laundry room makeover.  He had to go out of town again the following weekend and this time, had he been spying on me, he would have thought I was a complete crazy person.  Each night after my son went to bed, I fluttered around the house re-arranging accessories, mentally making over rooms, enlarging a photo of a pillow I have fallen in love with and then placing the laptop on my bed to visualize what it will look like, since I have no desire to ever learn how to use Photoshop.  I watched all of my ridiculous, trashy tv and looked through countless magazines and catalogs, all while wearing a mud mask and giving my hair a deep conditioning treatment.  I also ate Indian food (which he doesn't really like) and wine one night, banana pancakes and wine the next night, and a sleeve of Thin Mints and wine for dinner the last night!  That bottle of wine (which he really would have hated) only cost $3.99, so I felt completely justified in purchasing that pillow I mentioned above.  I will share more about that next week.  :)

My son and I also tried getting photos of ourselves to send him while he was away.  Using a camera timer with a toddler is tricky, but we did manage to get these shots:

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great week!

Found photos...

One of my goals this year is to go through the thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of pictures on my laptop and delete the unnecessary, print the fantastic, and maybe save some too...definitely save all of the greats online and on a flash drive.  I was trying to find a particular photo and realized just how many I really had and just how long this was going to take me.  Feeling a little overwhelmed,   I decided to check in with my favorite blogs and came across this post on Honey We're Home.  I took it as a sign and decided to get started.

I'd love albums similar to these, filled with photos and organized on bookshelves.

The first group of photos I found were the before and afters of my son's nursery.  The previous owners sure did put in their time creating their son's nursery, but it was just a tad too busy for me:

I wanted the walls to be a bit more neutral because I planned to add pops of color with all of the accessories. I ended up using Behr's "country club" and "popped corn" and was pleased with the results.  The walls almost look purple in these photos, but I always say the color resembles chocolate milk:

And I showed this way back when, but here is the finished product again:

Pretty soon, it will be time for a big boy room.  Ahh!!!  Photos of the nursery will definitely be printed because I don't ever want to forget his first room.  Oh my goodness!!...what great memories.

Play time...finally!

For a long time I have had a love/hate relationship with toys.  Of course love wins, but I have always had a ridiculous fear of toys overtaking our house and having it look like a preschool or a toy store or just a massive mess.  Our home is on the small side, so dedicating an entire room to toys and books and puzzles was just unfortunately out of the question.  As I mentioned before, our dining "room" was virtually unused and since we still have an eat-in kitchen/family room, we decided to donate that table and make that area a play space.   Room is in quotes because really it is not a room.  It is a portion of a room...a nook...a tiny nook.  :)  We are making it work, though.  Since the other half of the room is a living area and also the first room of our home that you see when you walk in, I wanted the spaces to flow and to make sense in our home and I didn't want the toys to be the first things you see.  I wanted a cohesive space and while we still have some things to do, the play area is really taking shape and we have already spent some quality hours in there.

Before checking it out, I thought I'd show how the space has looked in the past.  It has had it's share of changes over the past few years.  When we first moved in, we had it as our sitting area:

Then we flipped the room and moved the table to that side.  Unfortunately, I never really took pictures of the table area because it left a lot to be desired.  Often it was just a bare table where I worked on art projects or blogged, other times it housed holiday decor:

treats at my son's first birthday party

Halloween 2010

Though you can't see the table, this Christmas decor was on it!  :)  (2010)

the day of the move (2011)

I wanted the play space to be a fun, creative area while also still making sense with the decor in the rest of our home.  I didn't want the space to seem disjointed in any way.   Here is how it looks now:

So that's it!  Connor runs in there as soon as he wakes in the morning, so I am going to pretend he loves the design of the new space, not just the toys.  :)

A few details:

• The shelving and accessories were already in our home, just taken from other rooms, so this was a free makeover.  
• The mirror on the right wall is metal, so not only is it perfect for face-making, but also letter magnets!
• The easel was one of his Christmas gifts from us and is currently doubling as a kitchen/grocery store, with a bin of pots, pans, and utensils underneath, next to his car.
• My husband and I made that penguin from a box.  I 100% copied the one from Gourmet Mom on-the-Go when we had a penguin party for Connor's first birthday.  My mother-in-law helped me sew felt fish bean bags to be thrown into the penguin's mouth.  They are in the bucket next to the penguin.
• I still have that bowl of corks in this room.  :)  Joining them are two (aluminum?) trees my parents gave us as part of our Christmas gift.  I love them!  They will be perfect for Christmas, but I plan to keep them up year-round.

Now we just need to finish the seating area on the opposite end and then this room will be complete.