Budget Friendly Laundry Room Makeover

Making over a laundry room doesn’t need to break the bank. I’m going raw here, and sharing our budget friendly laundry room makeover.

Have you ever seen a worse-looking laundry room?!?! Aye aye aye, have I got a before and after story for you!!

There are so many decor details about this house that have been in question from the day we moved in, and frankly left us scratching our heads. So many corners were cut rather than completing the project correctly and safely. A price we have had to pay, which ended up costing quite a bit of money fixing in the long run. I’ve written about some of what I’m talking about before, and our laundry room was no exception.

What was once a third staircase in our house, the previous owners took out that stair case and put in a laundry room area, and a broom closet which is now a built in bookcase in the kitchen. Rather than insulating and installing proper 16″ on center studs and drywall, they used particle board and no insulation what so ever.

To make matters worse, they installed the particle board walls over shag carpeting. I’m not quite sure what their mindset was with that one, but whatevs, what’s done is done, and it was time to give our laundry room a major makeover.

The goal: Open up the room by taking down the wall, lightening it up with white paint, rework the electric in the ceiling, install new flooring, organize with baskets, and create a folding area.

The challenge: Working around the appliances. The washer and dryer needed to stay put because there simply wasn’t a place to temporarily moves these monsters. Also, there’s a deep freezer located opposite the washer / dryer, that needed to stay in the area. So, we had to shimmy the appliances around as needed.

First off, we had to take down that weird wall along with that strip of shag that it was built over. Open up the room that was essentially a hallway. We saved the few 2×4’s we could for future projects, which are now stored upstairs in the barn.

On the outside wall which houses the washer and dryer, we shoved in insulation to protect the pipes and to make things more efficient. You know, keep the drafts outside and all that.

The walls were peach; a difficult color to paint over especially when the color you’re painting with is white. I have found that the color peach is more challenging to paint over than orange. I speak from experience. To cover the color here, it took two coats of primer, and three coats of white paint. The peach just kept bleeding through, so five coats of paint what the answer.

For the floor I went with this tried and true linoleum. The wood floors below were stable, however I needed durability and sustainability. The laundry room is a high traffic area on all scopes, and linoleum is easy to clean and is perfect for a hard working room such as this.

The peel and stick squares were a cinch to install, and those that needed to be cut to size, were easily done so with a straight edge and utility knife.

Keeping with white and bright, the folding area called for an off-the-shelf white countertop, and the cabinet below is one that used to be in the kitchen before we installed the new stove. We cut the countertop to size, and used the remaining as a shelf next to the cabinet. A coat of light blue paint brought it up to this laundry room makeover speed, and we added a small drink fridge, because, why not.

Sean rewired the electric in the ceiling and installed two light fixtures that I found at a tag sale, setting me back only $5 for the pair. A thorough coat of a light royal blue spray paint is all they needed for their facelift.

Out with the old and in with the old-made-new. The slop sink that was moved to the tool room, what changed out for this Marketplace find, completing the major laundry room updating. I wrote all about both sink transformations, here.

Last on the ticket was to devise some serious organization, and what better way than with oversized baskets and bins. Small appliances that are on hand for those infrequent uses, along with towels and some other laundry supplies tend to look only like clutter when stored on a shelf. But, with the help of these bins and baskets, everything has a place and is easily accessible.

This laundry room makeover has been a project in the making, and prime example of one that was worked on piecemeal. A project where one step was completed, with downtime mixed in before the next step was started.

It’s funny, when trying to account for how much time was spent on this makeover, the hours to months ratio is up there. It took us 11 months to complete this project, but factoring in only the hands-on hours spent, that added up to only 48.

As you know, some projects around here take time and are long and drawn-out, but what’s important is to still be patient and get what needs to be done first. Sometimes we get sidetracked for other projects, other things, and for good reason. Luckily with this makeover, every little thing we did was a vast improvement of what it was, so putting up with the longevity wasn’t such a big deal.

That being said, praise be that this laundry room makeover is complete!!

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