This was our laundry room on the day of our home inspection, so not our stuff. I hated everything about this room. Would you take a look at that floor? What the? Yuck! The dryer was so disgusting that I insisted we take our clothes to the laundromat. Plus the washer and dryer were reversed which drove me nuts! Even the cabinets were gross, so disgusting they weren’t worth salvaging. And it’s hard to imagine me not saving something!
So one of the first things I did after we moved in, with a 3 month old and a 20 month old, was gut the laundry room. Note the tall water pipes. I had a plumber shorten them because I didn’t want them sticking up above the washer/dryer. Yes, I’m anal! I hated that big outlet for the dryer, but hadn’t thought of any clever solution for that yet.
This is me with short hair. Probably the only time in my life. I donated it to Locks of Love right before my son was born.
So I desperately needed a new washer and dryer and I scored an amazingly lucky find. The washing machine was a Home Depot floor model, marked down super cheap. But… the dryer that it was paired with was gas and we, unfortunately, needed an electric one. {We do have a gas furnace, so it is possible to convert, but our laundry room is on a slab, so it was not worth it.} So we bought just the washer from Home Depot and wouldn’t you know it, I found the matching ELECTRIC dryer at Sears Scratch & Dent {okay, technically I think the name is Sears Outlet, but around here everyone calls it Scratch & Dent}. This was an amazing find because they only had like one red dryer in the whole store, and this was the one. We picked both the washer and dryer up ourselves to save on delivery charges. Shabang!!
I decided to try wallpapering for the first time… Remember I had two little kids so I blame mommy fog for this decision. I could never decide what I wanted to do with the wall behind the washer and dryer. Beaded board? Maybe? Shelves? Definitely. Because I couldn’t decide, the laundry room sat around in limbo for quite a while.
I insisted on having the washing machine on the left and dryer on the right, so I paid a plumber to move the waste water line, this was after I had him shorten the water pipes because I didn’t like that they stuck up over the machines. Hubby and I re-routed the dryer vent ourselves, by cutting a new hole in the wall and running the vent through the garage and out the side of the house. We closed off the old hole by sticking plastic shopping bags in the old vent, then filling both sides (laundry room side and garage side) with Great Stuff. You couldn’t see it because I put a cabinet where the garbage can in the above picture was. I never loved the cabinet, even after I painted the door a metallic red to match the washer/dryer, so I would take the cabinet out periodically, then put it back. It drove hubby crazy!
It didn’t stay this bad for long. I built a vinyl covered counter top that sat across the washer, dryer, and cabinet. I don’t know why I don’t have any pictures with the cabinet, it looked a little better than this. I installed these cheap Ikea shelves because I wasn’t sure what I ultimately wanted up there. Hubby swapped out the outlets and switches, as he had done throughout the house. Oh, and did you notice I painted that giant ugly black outlet the same color as the wall. It was a better, but not great. Sadly, we lived with the room like that for about two years.
The one thing that I did finish was the floor. I used Lisbon Cork flooring from Lumber Liquidators. It was $1.29/sq ft. (Style: Por do Sol Cork Flooring, 4mm Layer, Glue Down Installation) The pieces looked pretty much like the cork square you buy for your wall to stick thumb tacks in, except these were double wide and had a shiny finish on one side. I don’t really recommend it and if I were to install cork in the future, I’d go with the plank type, like this. What I used had to be glued down. It wasn’t hard to do, but there are a lot of seems, and it hasn’t held up as well as I hoped.
You can see how this project turned out by reading these other posts:
1: Initial Renovation << You are here
2: Shelf Over Stacked Washer/Dryer
3: Wallpaper, Outlets, and Doors
4: Laundry Basket Shelf and Counter Top
5: Wall Shelves
6: W-A-S-H Letters
7: Paddles as Drying Racks
8: Final Reveal
I totally dig the pink safety googles! If I had a pair like that, maybe I’d take on some of my much needed diy projects… Keep it up, SmartGirl!
Alice in Denver