Laundry Room Love

I've been laundry room dreamin' on my Pinterest boards for quite some time now...

Okay, so Pinterest is a time warp. And inspires an unattainable world of magazine-perfect houses, perfect outfits for all occasions, perfectly-easy updos and hair styles, perfectly cooked recipes, perfect parties, perfect holiday decor, perfect DIY projects and perfect workout plans for that perfect body. However, if you are anything like me, then you still find it utterly addicting.

So I probably won't ever have that multi-million dollar dream home with a hidden staircase in the floor to a wine cellar under the kitchen. And I realize that the girl with that great butt probably spends 6 hours in the gym every day, not 15 minutes each morning doing donkey kicks and lunges.  If you can keep it all in perspective and reign in all of those great ideas on your giant wish list, once in a while you can achieve something much more realistic, yet still pretty fantastic.

Really, isn't the point of Pinterest to provide inspiration to work toward your goals? In that vain, I've been biding my time to make the coveted front loading washer and dryer my very own. Finally, I convinced the Tightwad Thrifty Teeth Man to replace my 20-year old washer and dryer with new units found at a great clearance price at Best Buy. {Hint - if you are looking for a good deal on new appliances, wait until the end of summer when the discontinued and floor models go on sale to make way for the newer versions of the same appliance}.

Here is the before of the catastrophe that was my laundry room.

Oh, if only I would have taken a photo of what these floors looked like under the washer and dryer before I vacuumed and scrubbed them on hands and knees.

The walls got a nice, new coat of Ben Moore, Palladian Blue in a satin finish to withstand the humidity and wear and tear. And finally, the new twins arrived!

It's really handy to have a handyman dad to help you hang cabinets the right way!

And the last big piece of the room, the countertop goes in. We went with a bar top depth (36 inches) formica counter from a local kitchen remodeling center. The nice part about the bar depth is that you can cut to exact size to cover the depth of the units from the front of the units to the wall. Versus a standard counter depth (24 inches) that would have a molded backsplash, but wouldn't extend to the front of the units. You can see from the photo above that the counters were installed on a ledger board that outlined the area where the counter would go in. Since the front of the units were supported by a board on top of the washer, we decided that leg supports weren't necessary.

I bought the message board from World Market to hide the "Smart Center" panel which houses our modem and wireless router.

I painted the fuse panel the same wall color. Once it arrives, I will hang the medium, white beadboard drying rack from Ballard Designs over the fuse panel for a place to hang up delicates to dry.

Marley has a special place in the laundry room for her treats and food bin now. I scoured the internet for a bin that would fit next to the unit and finally ended up with the one below from the Container Store which holds up to 40 lbs of dog food.

We had to work the counter top around the washer hook ups and an outlet. So, we created a template for the counter shop to use to cut to an exact fit and had them also cut a small notch in the back so that it would slide flush against the wall. We didn't secure the counter, so that it can slide out in case you need to get behind the units to clean or access the hookups easier.

The metal laundry tub hides the hookups and doubles as a bin to hold various stainer removers and other things like lost socks. I got the glass jar from Target and it is perfect for my Costco-sized OxyClean powder. There's also a convenient outlet next to the hookups, so I can keep my Dirt Devil Dust Buster in the laundry room now.

Mops and brooms still located behind the door of the laundry room and extra aprons are hidden from sight on an over-the-door hook.

Wire baskets from HomeGoods hold extra paper towels. Clearly, I have a problem with buying in bulk, so finding places to store the extras is always tricky. Not the prettiest to display in the bins, but hey they are functional.

A pop-up canvas tote from The Container Store organizes all of my reusable grocery bags and insulated bags so they are out of sight.

All of the other lightbulbs, tools, cleaners, batteries, and odds and ends are neatly organized behind the doors of my new cabinets, which were purchased ready to hang and painted white from Lowe's. I chose black pulls to finish them off. They cost around $350 said and done.

It's amazing how organization actually makes doing laundry in this new room much less painful each week. I'm definitely feeling the laundry room love now.