My Laundry room

When we bought this house, we knew it was a "fixer-upper". What we liked about it was that most of it was functional, just hideous. So we can just live with it all until we get the time/money to fix it up. The laundry room was on the list from the start.

Of course, there is the obvious. The curtains are awful, the paint is dingy, and the trim wasn't fully painted in the first place. It looks like there was wallpaper and a border up, and then later someone tried to peel it up and gave up. And so, like they did in other rooms in the house, they retextured over the wallpaper a spikey texture that doesn't match the rest of the house and then painted. But in this room, they were even more sloppy than normal. Not only did they not remove the light switches beforehand (they did that in every room, leaving untextured gaps near the edge), but they also didn't texture in places that you didn't think you would notice. Like under a counter. So some is spikey, some is painted wallpaper, and some areas are the actual, "orange peel" original texture of the house. Did I mention that when they painted the door for the ironing board cabinet, they painted right over the hinges? Sigh.

But my main frustration was the layout. I am a visual learner, so here ya go.

See, the problem is the counters. You can't get to the counter beside the dryer very well, so they couldn't put cabinets in. So the area underneath that counter has always been my food storage, out for the world to see. And the place I have to stand and put things in the washer is fine normally, but when I was pregnant I had to back in because I didn't fit with my belly facing forward. Here is the new layout we are working on.

When I measured the washer and dryer and found out they fit along that wall, the whole thing just made more sense. The window being off to that side means we can have upper and lower cabinets along the top wall, with a nice deep sink where the regular sink is now. No wasted counters for no reason! Plenty of storage! The only problem is that not every set of washer and dryers will fit in that slot, so when these break we will be measuring every set in the store until we find ones that work again. But it is worth it, because the whole room will suddenly make sense!

So far the plumber has moved the hookups for the washer over, and Christopher is working on the electrical before we close up the drywall again. I can't wait until I have after pictures to show!

In the meantime, some actual "after" shots. Christopher noticed that the fireplace stuff was 60% off when he was getting laundry room stuff, so he got us a set of fake logs that use our gas line to light a fire. The best part is that it works by remote. Up until this week, we had never cleaned nor used that fireplace. Way cool! Erm, I mean hot . . .