John & Melanie: October 2013

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Laundry Room

I've been doing some work in our laundry room- just trying to make it feel a little more "homey" since it is the first room we normally walk into. It has also become a room where we stack stuff we need to take places, so I wanted it to be sort of a mud room, too.

I started out by hanging a coat rack that I found at a thrift store a while ago. I decided to try chalk paint, which I have heard a lot about. I did research comparing Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and CeCe Caldwell, and found a place in Huntsville called Southern Cottage Designs that carried CeCe Caldwell, and decided to try it....I really liked how easy it was- as far as no sanding. I also liked that it is made of natural products, and has no smell- I was able to use it inside. And it cleans off so well! The accent color I went with in the laundry room is yellow. Here is the before of the coat rack-

Then John made me a long shelf that I painted white to hang over the washer and dryer.

Then, I decided to make a sort of pad/cover to go on top of the washer and dryer, to keep our machines from getting scratched. It was sort of a long process, but it worked. I had one long piece of cardboard I got from a friend who had bought a couch. It was a little flimsy, so I bought two foam boards and hot glued them to the cardboard, which made it much more firm. Then I bought some square foam pads, and glued those to the foam boards. Then I placed the fabric over board and hot glued it to the back!

The last thing I wanted to find was some metal letters that said WASH to go on the shelf. Well I had a hard time finding some, but I did find some cork letters at Hobby Lobby, and after googling, found some ideas on how to paint them to look like metal. I'm happy with how they turned out!

It's hard to get a picture of the whole room...on the wall opposite of the washer and dryer is where the coat rack is hanging...I'm happy with how it all turned out!