Laundry Room Re-do

Ok, so I've been pretty slack around here lately. Lots to catch up on but for now it's really just a teaser. Here is a link to my original post about our laundry room.  Well, we're FINALLY getting around to fixing it up. The in-laws are generously gifting us with a new front-load washer & dryer & the pedestals as our Christmas gift this year. They got an AMAZING deal on a fully-loaded Samsung washer & dryer set (not sure if that is the exact one but they look really similar) from our local Sears Outlet on Black Friday & they will deliver tomorrow.

Well since those giants are huge & extremely heavy so we knew that if we were ever wanting to re-do the floors that now was the time. I first read about cork floors over at Young House Love through their kitchen remodel & became interested. We first looked into slate but with the laundry room being right next to our bedroom I wanted something that would be a little quieter...not to mention warmer on the feet. We found the last 3 boxes of our style & color (pictures coming soon) at Lumber Liquidators for about $3 a square foot & started the install Tuesday night. I have to say that it was pretty easy & actually went really quickly once we got the prep work out of the way & got the hang of it all.

All of that will come to you soon enough but for now I wanted to share my plans with you for our future laundry room space as well as my checklist to both keep me in line & you in the know!

Here is a view from the ceiling. Feeling a little cramped? The room is just 4.5' x 6.5' so we need to use every imaginable space available to us. You can see the washer & dryer peeking out just a big under the blue cabinets (still haven't committed to that color but its my initial idea) & there are some other cabinets on the other side we'll get into in a minute. That thing on the back of the door would be the ironing board that I'm going to get some brackets to install & hang it there.

The green square on the floor is the Le Poeme rug from Ballard in Sage that is only $50 for a 2'x3' rug...sold!

The gold on the left wall is actually these safety pin plaques from Ballard as well that my sister & her husband bought us as part of a wedding gift. I have a big crush on them.

Here is a better view of the room as you walk in the door. We will be keeping the same wall color, just touching it up a bit.

Now turning to the right you'll find the washer & dryer with cabinets. Not really sure what the extra strip of white is at the top, it was just supposed to be crown molding.

 

Cabinets on the sides will have doors (see reference idea below) & yes we have an old birdseed bucket that is used for a multitude of things but came with the ubiquitous name of "puke bucket" thanks to what it was called in my childhood. Mom & Dad kept it classy folks. The silver bar will be for keeping extra hangers around & most likely will inevitably be used to dry my bras...the class is embedded in the DNA. I haven't done a lot of measuring so my idea of how this will all pan out may not be accurate but this is the rough idea. I'm loving these knobs from Anthro but will pbly see what Hobby Lobby has before diving in.

Next up, the left side of the room.

Hidden behind the door will be a rack for our OXO Floor Sweeper & my newest friend in the cleaning game, my Shark Steam Mop. On the right side will be a much thinner cabinet.

I'd like to put a tilt-out drying rack up top to dry larger pieces of clothing so they aren't scattered throughout our downstairs, similar to this old piece from Ballard.

Below that I'd like a shelf for perhaps some carpet cleaner, stain remover, etc & a taller shelf for the things you need but don't really want to see like the plunger & toilet brush. Finally below that I'd like a built-in area for our dog's bowls since that is typically where we keep them but it would be nice to have them look a little more professional.

I think that's about it! So here is our ever-growing to-do list. I still have to run everything past the husband & the master builder (my dad).

1. Order new floors
2. Get underlayment for floors
3. Remove shoe molding
4. Install new floors
5. Get a pipe collar to cover where the new flooring meets the dryer vent. - canceled this, they don't make them...oh well!
6. Install pipe collar - see above
7. Get quarter round
8. Paint quarter round
9. Install quarter-round
10. Touch up baseboards & quarter round
11. Remove existing shelf
12. Touch up walls
13. Touch up trim around doors (see here for the issue with it) 
14. Trim transition piece
15. Replace transition piece
16. Get washer/dryer delivered
17. Order rug
18. Order new air register (ours was stark white & I found one in aged brass online for only $6)
19. Place in new air register
20. Get hooks for ironing board
21. Install ironing board hooks
22. Buy crown molding
23. Paint crown molding
24. Install crown molding
25. Buy cabinet materials
26. Buy new dog bowls (the ones she has now are a little gaudy for my taste)
27. Build cabinets
28. Paint cabinets & cabinet trim
29. Install cabinets
30. Install cabinet trim
31. Install cabinet knobs
32. Buy hanging bar
33. Install hanging bar
34. Replace light bulbs to be the swirly efficient kind (see why the peeps at Lowe's love me?)

We've still got a LONG ways to go with this project but I'm really excited to see progress & will share how far we get after the weekend!

Chow Time

I've been avoiding showing off the kitchen because it always seems to be such the disaster. We had a shindig celebrating Tim's birthday/being in remission and cleaned the house to be spotless, just in time for about 30 people to come over. I think that I'll just make everything look clean and actually do the real cleaning after from now on. We had a great time and it was really amazing to be surrounded by so many of our friends that were able to make it with such short notice. After parties we both really get into straightening modes and are able to get everything nice and clean. Such was the case after Saturday although I have to admit that I hid quite a few things from the camera's view.

Anyways here is our kitchen. I replaced all of the silver knobs with these aged brass ones from Hobby Lobby. I went during a sale so they were only $2 rather than $4 which really added up with as many as we needed. I love the new look, it really did change the look of the kitchen making it look more vintage at least in my view.

I actually have quite a few knick-knacks around the kitchen but they don't ever seem to get in the way like I thought they would originally.

Both the tray and the Gurgle Pot were wedding gifts. My friend Julie asked what she should get our friend Maggie for her wedding and when I told her I thought a Gurgle Pot would be the perfect gift I never thought she'd get one for me but it was perfect, color and everything. I LOVE it.

This coffeemaker is my savior every morning when I'm stumbling out of bed. The sugar bowl was a splurge from Belk's but I love the eclectic look it gives. I also used a cookie jar from HomeGoods as our utensil jar, its the pretty blue I like so much and is just the right size all around.

The blue is carried on in the cookbooks that were given to us by a great friend as a housewarming gift. It then ties in with the yellows and naturals of the kitchen in the dishtowel from Anthropologie my sweet mother-in-law gave me at one of our wedding showers that we leave on the oven.

Lastly there is the little corner over by our bar where we store wine, our decanter, some pretty frames from Anthropologie and a vase and calla lillies from Smith and Hawken. I miss that store, Target carries the line which is awesome but I wish the store itself would come back for me. Oh well. 

I got the wall rack from Pier 1 for only $10 and its been really neat to watch the constant changing of it as we get various cards and invitations in.  I have to admit that I stole the idea from my friend Christy after she got hers to hold Christmas cards last year. It has been a great addition.

Things we have left to do here:

1. Get some barstools - We need something to allow people to hang out and chat while I'm slaving away in the kitchen, haha. Plus it would just allow for something to make that look a little more finished. The blue version would even match the dining room chairs I like so much.

2. Get drawer/cabinet/pantry organizers - I love things that are cleaned and properly organized and right now our cabinets, drawers and pantry are none of the above. I want to buy some of the pull-out racks to make everything more efficient and easier to use.

3. Get a rug? - I'm torn on this one, do I get a rug in order to protect the floors or is that going to be too much of a pain to keep clean. What do you all think?

Flushed

Well thats technically how I should look with a bathroom looking like this. It all started with the shower curtain which I had a temporary crush on (it has since faded away). I decided that I wanted to be a rebel and not getting a matchy matchy rug and that I would "pull the blues out of the curtain." Uhhh no blues in sight, well except for that rug. Time for a re-do. The bones of this bathroom are pretty much perfect, I'm just not thrilled with my decor thus far.

The one thing I do like here is my little cluster of stuff. The Neiman Marcus frame was given to me for Christmas last year by a good family friend. I got the little yellow vase from a store called Dutchmans, the flowers from Pottery Barn and the blue vase was my great-grandmothers. The little soap dish is a pretty new addition from Mast General Store.

Things we have left to do here:


1. Get a new shower curtain - As much as I hate the price of $120 for a shower curtain. I love this shower curtain from Anthropologie, the bustling makes it so feminine. I guess I will either have to suck it up or try to find something similar that I like just as much.

2. Get a new bath mat - The one we have is pretty shabby looking (see So Fresh and so Clean, Clean for what happened) so I want to update what we've got. Once again Anthropologie wins out.

3. Get art for above the toilet - I want something nice and colorful which I think could help to brighten up the whole room as it will be reflected directly in the mirror across.

4. Get 3 assorted sized glass pieces - I'd like something like the below to hold sample soaps, cotton balls, you know the typical bath supplies. I'm sure I can find something similar at a flea market or antique store. I may even pick up a few for our bathroom because I like them so much.

5. Get "oil-rubbed bronze" faucet - I think I'd pretty much like something similar to what I'm planning on replacing the faucet downstairs with. Here is a reminder for ya.

6. Place a picture in that frame...finally - I was waiting for one of our wedding pictures and lately I just keep forgetting to do it. I already know which one I want to feature, the one of us leaving is one of my favorites. Luckily I work at an ad agency and have someone I can get to retouch it in order to remove the petal from my eye and pull my dress up a bit. The starch got a little loose by the end of the night due to all of the dancing...

King of the Throne

Two days, two posts, two bathrooms. This time I'm showing you the big boy though, the master bath. The configuration of this space along with our closets was the #1 reason for the extensive changes we made to the original plans of our house. We had three main requests: 1. That there are 2 closets; 2. That the entrances to those closets opened into the bathroom; 3. That the toilet has its own room.

Although Tim & I typically have to be at work at the same time we never seem to get up in sync with one another so its nice that we can walk in, close the door and it stays nice and quiet in the room for whomever is still sleeping.

We have a few things done in here, I actually just got the bath mat from Pottery Barn last weekend. We were having issues with having to move our previous mat back and forth to catch the water from us & catch the water from the dripping shower door. Now we've got one that covers both issues in one little package.

The print over the toilet was Tim's wedding gift from me. Its a picture of the campus where Tim was coaching and we met, yes so sweet. The only problem is none of the colors in the picture are actually anything I want in the house BUT I wanted it to be somewhere that we could see it every day. The spot right over the toilet fit the bill perfectly.

Tim's a little bitter in that I got lucky with the size of my closet, it was slightly larger to begin with but there was some confusion when the foundation was poured and it ended up granting me an even larger closet. Unfortunately its still too small. Before I had a house to fill and pay for I used to have a thing for shopping, hence my overly full closet. I do have my mom's wedding dress in there though.

I have plans to paint that dresser & replace the knobs but it took a lot of time to get those drawers in with their special little latches so I'm avoiding that situation right now. All of my necklaces are hung up by thumbtacks so I should probably come up with a slightly more attractive solution. I do have a pretty blue little chandelier in there though. Thank you Pottery Barn Teen.

Tim's closet is a little work in progress, but bless him, he has taken on my sense of organization and kept it up. The kid keeps each type of clothing together and even sorts by color every once in awhile. Sometimes he really makes me so proud to be his wife.

Things we have left to do here:


1. Get some tile - Did we fool you? Thinking their might already be tile in there? It's linoleum but I want slate. The area of the bathroom is pretty small and we've got a great discount tile outlet around here with some amazing deals so I don't think we'd have to invest too much. 

2. Get a rug by the sinks - I'm not a huge fan of oranges but I think these are faded and sparse enough that I could live with them. I also really like the unusual shape. Slate floors can be kind of cold so it would be nice to have something a little cozier to stand on while getting ready and I think this rug from Anthropologie would make all the difference.

3. Put art above the towel rod by the sink - I'm at a loss as to what we should put here. I do have a few of my great grandmothers old handkerchiefs that I'd love to be able to group together and frame but I'm afraid that all of the moisture in bathroom may damage them.

4. Get some sort of towel storage furniture - Right now we don't really have a great place to store extra towels and I'm not really sure if we should find something to hang on a wall or get a piece of furniture  and figure out where to place that. I'm leaning more towards the shelf and putting it above the tub but still need to measure it all out. 

5. Get closet organizers - I love anything that is organized, but an organized closet with a place for everything and everything in its place? That is heaven to me. The summer before my freshman year at college I had some of my friends over to get together before we were all separated that fall. I had some boxes labeled and sorted ready to go to school and my lovely friends decided to switch labels as well as the contents of those boxes for me. They all enjoyed my frazzle as I tried to figure out how to get everything back the way it was.