My Happy Place

Laundry rooms are not meant to be fun places, it's where people go to do one of the most hated chores.

The laundry.

I absolutely LOATHE doing laundry. When Mat is home, he is really good at washing and drying and then it just sits there until I'm ready to fold it. And by ready, until it's overflowing and we are living out of the laundry basket.

When I decided to start working on the laundry room, I wanted it to be happy. I wanted bright and cheerful colors, not drab and uninviting. I needed to be a place I liked to spend time because let's face it, as a family of 6, I have loads of laundry (Get it? Loads.)

The room all started with a piece of fabric I found while perusing Hobby Lobby. I fell instantly in love, knew I had to have it, bought a yard and then thought, "Well crap... Where am I going to use it?"

Is she not absolutely beautiful?

Unless you have a window in your laundry room, you aren't going to necessarily going to use fabric in it, so when I decided that this piece of fabric was going to set the tone for this room, I had to get creative. I looked in my garage (2nd time the garage has come to my rescue! I'm starting to like it in there) and found a huge cork board that I had used in our previous house. My mind instantly went to all of the cute fabric covered cork boards I saw pinned all over Pinterest.

And so that settled it.

Here is the infamous cork board! (I do have a DIY tutorial, that will come eventually!)

Then one day, I was strolling the dollar aisle at Target (Seriously, who doesn't love that aisle?) and I found these really cool memo holders and buckets with ribbon that matched the color in the fabric. I scooped them up, didn't think twice, I had no idea where I was going to use them, but I just HAD to have them (I'm female, don't judge me!). The memo holders hold pictures that I can change out as I want and the buckets are perfect to hold all of the annoying stuff that you find in your husband's ACU pockets.

AND THEN! I needed a place for the mismatched socks that I know you have, don't deny it. I was using this old, ugly basket and I wanted to replace it. I went on Amazon (If Amazon doesn't sell it, you don't need it, trust me.) I found a cute, little white basket and thought it was perfect!

So, with my fabric covered cork board, buckets, memo holders and a basket, I set out to put it all together.

The first step was to choose a color. I went to WalMart and started looking at paint colors. I hated them all. It wasn't the bright and cheery that I was looking for. I turned a corner and there he was. All bright and blue and perfect. I had to bring him home. If you have seen Monster's Inc, you will know exactly what I'm talking about when I say this color is Sully blue! (I have tried to find a paint swatch online and I just can't, the pictures will show you the color)

I just stumbled across this while I was pulling up my photos to use.

My parents took the kids for the weekend and I got to work!

The laundry room had a shelf and it was too high for my taste so I had my father in law move it down on one of his previous visits. Whoever in the heck had the grand idea to put it up, also had the grand idea to use liquid nails to put it up. Ripping it off the wall left huge, gaping tears in the drywall. So. The next step was to fix it.

Not sure who had this genius idea, but a little plaster and it's all better.

The next part was the fun part... The paint! I don't have many photos of this process, just this one...

And it's beautiful cell phone quality too!

I painted the shelf white, kept the trim and doors white and called it a day.

The following photos are what I took when I was done painting. Again, fabulous cell phone quality.

And after that, the room sat. I left for three months while we dealt with the bed bugs, the washer stopped working, and I was just not motivated to finish it.

THEN, we bought a new washer and dryer, I moved back in and realized that I had about 100 loads of laundry to wash (not kidding) and got my motivation!

I posted about the laundry sorting organizational wall here.

So... What do you think? Am I crazy for the colors? I do love it, very much.