I am so excited to start posting ‘after’ photos here again! The house tour was fun and all, but I could really use some pretty in my life again. :)
I teamed up with The Home Depot, Maytag and Tide to celebrate a summer promotion where if before August 2 you buy a select Maytag washer and a 150 oz bottle of Tide, you’ll get a $100 Mastercard gift card. My part of the celebration is sharing my laundry room redo along with my best tips on renovating a laundry room on a budget. The extra exciting part is The Home Depot, Maytag and Tide are giving away a Maytag washer and dryer and year’s supply of Tide HD that comes with a laundry room design plan courtesy of yours truly, AND, wait for it… $5,000 to do it with! So fun, right?
But first, I want to show you what Michael and I were able to do on a tight budget in our sad, green checkered laundry room.
I was tempted to start from scratch in here. But when it was time to figure out a budget for this room redo we were also picking out floor$ and front door$, so I was like, yeah… you know what, we’re going to just paint everything in here and see what happens. :)
The walls were painted Benjamin Moore’s Cashmere Gray (one of my favorites – it’s a soft green-blue gray) and the floors were painted two and three shades darker on the same card. I think keeping the paint colors in the same color family helped the floors to not look so crazytown. I used water-based alkyd paint on the floors which holds up as well as oil-based paint, but dries lightyears faster and is a breeze to clean in comparison.
Other things that were painted in the room besides the walls and floors? The ceiling fan (just white spray paint!), the cabinets (Ben Moore’s White Dove in semi gloss), the mis-matched new hardware (three cheers for gold spray paint!), the IKEA woven baskets (spray painted tomato red!) and the new light fixture above the window (made the green line on the globes with green nail polish!).
We purchased a few new things for the room to make it more functional. I found the pull-out spray faucet for a great price on eBay and let me tell you – it is changing my life to have a deep utility sink and a really amazing faucet in my laundry room! :)
The sad before:
There wasn’t really a space to add a hanging bar in here, and seriously who doesn’t love a rolling laundry cart? So when I stumbled across this laundry butler online that was exactly counter depth, it was a no-brainer purchase.
You can see here above how we opted to take off the doors on part of the upper cabinets. Here’s what the uppers looked like before:
My sweet and totally ripped sister, Ali, basically karate chopped her way through the bottom shelf so we could get it out of the cabinet frame. True sisterly love right there.
Once the doors were off and the bottom shelf was out, we could fill the holes and sand the imperfections and then touch up the paint. I discovered my new favorite putty/patching compound
We added a little furring strip to the bottom of the cabinet and to the fronts of the top shelf to finish off the edges. This helped the shelf look SO much better.
We also painted the backs of the shelf the color of the wall. I think between that and the addition of the furring strips, the cabinet started to look like a wall shelf instead of uppers without their doors.
We added a furring strip to the bottom of the upper cabinets on the other side of the room too, just to help finish those off as well. I wish we could have replace those doors so much, but I think the white paint helps clean them up a lot and they’re not so, so country now. Compromises for the budget! :)
In the upper cabinets above the appliances, I modpodged the backs with neon gift wrap from Homegoods (the best place to buy wrapping paper IMHO).
I also added cork tiles to the insides of the doors for pinning up little reminders and momentos that make me smile while I’m reaching for the detergent.
I needed some cheap wall art in the room so I did my $4 print trick using a quirky image I found online of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.
I also made a sunburst-esque mirror out of laundry clips from IKEA that I thought turned out pretty cute. The arc lamp is from Homegoods. I found that little chair at Goodwill for $15 and reupholstered it in some Dwell Studio fabric from Home Fabrics in Mesa that was about $7/yd. Love that store so much.
I think my favorite project in the room has to be the new countertops though. We used a concrete product called Ardex Feather Finish to resurface the old laminate. I’m excited to share the tutorial!
The concrete made the room feel instantly more modern.
Those counter tops look amazing!! I can't wait to see the tutorial!
Gorgeous! I am amazed at how you turned the room around. Can't wait to see the other transformations!
Jaw dropping. Curious to know what you spent in all. Can't be much for what you accomplished. I LOVE IT.
Holy cow. This whole thing just blows me away. Everything is my favorite part.
Holy cow, what a wonderful transformation. This room makes me actually want to DO laundry! My least favorite thing in the world!
You seriously did an amazing job! I love the countertops and can't wait to hear how you did those!
This is just getting me more and more excited for the rest of the house!
Love it, especially the art! What did you do for framing the Gene Kelly photo?
AWESOME!! Gah the concrete countertops are incredible. Great job!!!
Ah- I love this! We close on our first little house in two weeks and watching you reno your has been so fun knowing that I will be doing the same so soon!
Oh Yippee…a reno reveal! The laundry room looks amazing-a nice little retreat from the other reno work when you need to do the laundry work! I love the demolition update, too.
lovely..such a serene place to do laundry! Love all the shades of gray and blue.
Jenny, you are a master at your craft! Can't wait to see the rest.
Jenny, I am amazed! You never fail to impress me with what you are able to accomplish in a short amount of time. Its so inspiring to see your DIYs! Thank you for sharing!
It looks fantastic! I can't believe that you made the upper cabinets look like built-in shelves. Usually when cabinet doors are removed off of uppers it looks very DIY. These on the other hand, look amazing. The Cashmere Gray was a great choice of paint and that artwork makes the whole room. Great job!
This renovation is so amazing. And my favorite part is the small budget! Do you have an estimate of how much all the changes ended up costing?
Your laundry room looks amazing! Wow such a transformation.
Teresa
I am exhausted just seeing how much you've already gotten done. AMAZING. And it looks wonderful. I'm officially totally inspired.
SO excited to see the tutorial on the countertops. My husband and I just decided against replacing with granite in our kitchen, and I'm desperate for something to replace the fugly. Go Jenny Go!
Wow, there's nothing much to say except this is incredible. I mean, if this isn't the bets calling card for your talent I don't know what is! I'm pretty excited for the rest of the house to get it on now! It's going to look great.
This is just soooo freakin good Jenny. Love all the DIY inspiration in this room redo. The floors look brand new!
Aahh! I can't wait to see how you did the counters. All my kitchen and bath counters are the same style and I've been trying to figure out how to fix them without replacing. Beautiful room btw!
You're SO talented! Wow, everything looks amazing. Especially those concrete countertops, paired with the gold hardware and the Cashmere Grey. I love all of it!
This is so inspiring and honestly, when looking at the before pictures I was like…how is she going to pull this off. BUT YOU DID! Your work is inspiring and amazing. Kudos to a great room.
Jenny, the only thing I have to say is you are truly a miracle worker! The laundry room looks fab, can't wait to see what else you have up your sleeve!
I love this! Cannot wait to read the countertop tutorial – we're working with some 1972 Avocado Green laminate at the moment.
Jenny are y ou real?
Love the mirror, the pattern on the floor, the red baskets- so so clever! You always surprise and delight with your spot-on creativity, Jenny, great job!
Incredible transformation, as always :)
Um…you are a genius!
Your laundry room is phenomenal! What a bright, happy, well-utilized space. My husband and I bought our first house in January that's desperate for an update everywhere, especially in the inefficient laundry room. Looking forward to seeing more of the tips and tutorials you'll be sharing!
You are amazingly talented! Thank you for sharing your creative and beautiful ideas.
you are a wizard.
You really knocked this one out of the park Jenny! I am constantly amazed by your budget friendly, high style make-overs. Go girl, can't wait to see what is in store for the rest of your new home!!!!
Amazing job Jenny! You keep me inspired and motivated to press on through my own projects.
Amazing job Jenny! You keep me inspired and motivated to press on through my own projects.
1. Wonderful giveaway!
2. I just saw this simple idea at betterafter.net, to reverse cabinet doors and use the plain backside: https://safaffect.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/before-after-roberts-condo-kitchen/
3. LOVE what you've done in the laundry room. Must have taken a lot of patience to paint those floors!
4. When the dust settles (literally), will your profile get an update to switch out brownstone for the AZ Valley House as the site of your creative DIY? :)
WOW… beautiful!
Love your redo! My favorite part are the countertops too! Everything looks great! Awesome giveaway!
I had to scroll between the first two pictures to believe it was really the same room. This is one of my favorite of your renovations. Great work.
KERPOW!!!!
Its amazing, and well worth the wait. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the house progress!
Oh my goodness I love your laundry room redo! Love the floors & the countertops, just everything. So inspiring. I wish this were my laundry room. Ha, like that is ever going to happen.
BRAVO, Jenny! You are a genius!
Cannot WAIT for the concrete tutorial! It's exactly what ive been wanting for my own navy-laminate-infested kitchen!!! Please hurry ;-)
So incredible! I am most amazed that you managed to transform those brick pavers. Whets my appetite for the rest of the house!!!
What an amazing giveaway! And I am completely blown away with the way you transformed that room on such a small budget! Amazing what some paint can do!
I'm speechless! It looks amazing!
Holy freakin' moly! If I were you I would never want to leave that room.
I second everyone else's comments!!! Maybe you should charge admission and let's us AZ pals come take a tour when you are all done!!! A-mazing
Amazing job…Do you ever sleep?
Are you going to use BM White Dove for all your white trim? I'm wondering because I've started painting doors and trim with that color, now thinking it may be too gray and I should have stuck with my tried and true favorite BM Super White?!
Just wish my laundry room wasn't in the dungeon….I'd have such grand plans. :) Beautiful job, colors are fantastic.
Magic!