Laundry Room redo

The computer situation got worse before it got better. By Wednesday night, I'd successfully installed my camera software so I could download my photos. I also clicked an "Okay" button before reading the contents of a dialog box completely, resulting in a glitch that made it so that every single .exe program on my profile (that's most of them, friends) tried to open in Adobe Reader. Thankfully The Mister's profile was untouched and I was able to figure it all out after a few days of (again) mourning the loss of all my bookmarks. Seriously, this computer thing has been one ridiculous frustration after another. I still haven't figured out the iTunes problem and right now I just don't have the brain energy to Google all over the place trying to figure it out.

The good news is that after I got things fixed I was able to successfully reinstall the camera software and download the pictures that had been languishing on my memory card, so today I have photos of my laundry room redo to share! (apologies up front for the wonky colors--the laundry room is in my basement so the lighting is always bad. I tried to tweak the photos so they're closer to true colors but I'm not sure how successful that was.)

I was inspired to redecorate my laundry room by this:

This is the fabric on my ironing board cover. Isn't it cute? My mom gave this to me for Christmas two years ago and I was delighted to receive it! You wouldn't think an ironing board cover would inspire such joy, but I find that many of my favorite gifts are things that I never would have thought to buy for myself but that I am tickled to have. A cute ironing board cover falls squarely into that category for me.

Last year sometime I decided I needed more laundry baskets so I took a trip to The Container Store to find something fun. While there, I remembered my cute ironing board cover and decided to look for something to match. I couldn't remember the colors in the fabric other than pink and green, so I chose turquoise blue for the third basket.

Even though the blue wasn't actually in the fabric, it was a great jumping off point for some other decor. I purchased a pair of inexpensive shelves at Target to hang on the big empty wall above the ironing board.

I also purchased a cute vinyl floral design from Stampin' Up! that was in the perfect colors to match the ironing board cover. My intention was to put it on the wall above the lower shelf so it looked a bit like it was sitting on the shelf. Except--in my laundry room the walls are heavily textured, and the vinyl wouldn't stay adhered to the wall. Boo!

(Sidenote: This is a prime example of what seems to happen with every home improvement project that I try--I get all excited, start, and then get sidelined by some stupid problem that is going to be SO much harder to fix than the project would have been in the first place. Happens EVERY time, I swear. Which is why I started this project months ago and am just now getting finished. And why nothing else ever gets done around here.)

My original thought was that I was going to have to cut a piece of wood, paint it, and then put the vinyl on that. Which meant finding a piece of wood, and someone to cut it for me. Which meant that it didn't happen. I was talking about the problem to my mom, who wisely suggested that I try putting the vinyl on an artist's canvas instead. Brilliant! Now why didn't I think of that in the first place? I bought a huge canvas at the craft store and spray painted it turquoise--Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze, to be exact--with a can of paint I had leftover from another project, and happens to match the turquoise laundry basket. The vinyl applied easily to the painted canvas, and then I remembered that I had some large thrifted frames in my stash and most serendipitously, found one that fit the canvas perfectly! It got a coating of Rust-oleum Berry Pink to match the hot pink vinyl flowers and the pink in the fabric.

While I was rummaging through the frames, I found another large one that I thought might be fun on another big empty wall. This one got a coat of the Blue Ocean Breeze and I set about to find something to go inside it. I looked through my old magazines and found a really neat old Tide ad, but the page was an odd size so finding a frame would have been impossible. I remembered a vintage advertising calendar I saved from a few years ago (I save all our family calendars--I figure they're a good reference and kind of like a diary). There I found an ad for Dash detergent and better yet, the bright pink and yellow in the ad were a perfect match to my fabric! I trimmed it out of the calendar and hunted through my house for a frame. I only found one that was the right size and it's not my ideal, but it was free and once I sprayed it with Berry Pink it did the trick.

Now that I had art on the walls, the next thing was the window. My laundry room is in the basement so the only window is below ground and there's a window well right outside. Covering up the window to keep out the light or provide privacy wasn't a requirement but I thought a valance would be fun to soften the hard edges and add more color. I looked through my collections to see if I could find something fun to use: aprons, vintage tablecloths, even hankies, but nothing I had was in the right colors. I didn't want to make anything or spend much money, so I hit the thrift stores and found the perfect bright pink homemade valance--it even has white ball fringe on the bottom! It's lined too, and for $2.99 I couldn't have made anything that cute. I hung it on a black curtain rod that I took down from my bedroom--since I'm redecorating in there, the black rods won't be needed. I did have to buy two sets of black ring clips but found some on clearance at JoAnn's for $2.99 per package.

For the window, I used a vinyl bejeweled chandelier from House of 3. I've had these for a while too--they won't stick on my walls either (blast my stupid orange-peel wall texture!) but they adhere perfectly to glass! Who doesn't wish for a little bit of glam to dress up the mundane task of laundry? As an added bonus, they distract the eye from the dying aspen suckers and dead spiders in the window well.

The last thing on my list was finding something cute to hold my laundry products. I love these big lidded Anchor-Hocking jars from Target so I bought the largest one to hold my Tide and the middle-sized jar to hold my OxiClean. I found another middle-sized jar at the thrift, so that one now holds my Borax, and I'm holding out hope that I can find one more matching jar to hold the Biz I just bought because I've heard it's great for getting stains out of vintage linens.

To dress up the jars and keep from getting them mixed up (all those white powders look the same), I ordered vinyl lettering from my cute friend Amy at Words and Wisdom. It was so easy to put it on the jars and I love how it turned out! A little tip to keep the letters straight:

I used a ruler and a dry-erase marker to make dashes at a uniform height around the jar. Then I stuck the vinyl on, keeping the bottom edge of the letters on the lines. When I pulled off the top sheet, many of the marks stuck to it but any that remained easily wiped off with a tissue. To scoop my powders I use brightly-colored vintage aluminum measuring cups that I thrifted at some point.

I am pleased with how the room came out, especially since I was able to use things that I already had around the house or items that were thrifted or purchased very inexpensively. I'm not going to go so far as to say that it makes me want to do the laundry, but having a cute room to do it in definitely makes the task more pleasant!