Sunny Spot Off the Sunroom

After I typed that title I thought it’d be perfect to blog about our deck since it’s right off of the sunroom. But this post is all about the laundry room, err laundry closet. While not the most glamorous or fun area in the house, it gets used a lot and deserved some attention.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on Pinterest, you’ve seen some of the GORGEOUS laundry rooms people have pinned. I’m still not convinced these fancy-schmancy rooms actually exist in real life, but I can still strive to make one similar in my house, right?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here, here, and here are some laundry rooms that make me mad with jealousy.

But unfortunately, there’s not a lot to work with in my laundry closet. At least not right now. The house came with a stacked washer/dryer which was actually IN THE KITCHEN! So during the remodel it was relocated and the wall of an existing closet was bumped out to accommodate it off the sunroom.

We also relocated the water heater to this closet. It originally was a tank-style heater hidden in a homemade cabinet in the kitchen. *Sidenote* No wonder my kitchen seems so much bigger nowadays. Because there’s no longer a water heater AND washer and dryer in there…

This closet is home to a lot of other stuff as well. Like some cleaning supplies, laundry detergents, old towels-turned-rags, the vacuum, iron, ironing board, and of course a rod to hang drying clothes. So the first steps I took to improve the look as well as functionality of this space, was to hang some of said items on the back of the doors.

I used two Command Hooks from 3M to hang our step ladder on one door.

Then I got a garden tool hanging system from the garage organization department at the home store to get the Swiffer, broom, and mops off the floor.

Once those items were hung, there was still this mess on the lone shelf.

After living with my new “organization” for a few months, I was itching to take the space a step closer to a dream laundry room. Hey, if you’ve got to wash clothes, you might as well have a pretty area in which to do so!

In order to give the room a little character/personality without spending too much money, I decided to paint the walls. I think there was too much white going on in there with white walls, trim, washer/dryer, and water heater. And after my shed organization, I rediscovered I had a gallon of paint I had never even opened.

So I cleared out everything but the washer and saw a little missing/shrunken caulk at the baseboard.

I applied some painter’s caulk here, and a few other spots, before I got out the paintbrush.

The paint I used is Behr’s Song of Summer. How fitting considering it was probably close to “feels like 110 degrees” while this paint party went down inside.

I quickly did the cutting in around the shelf and the rest of that wall, so that I could sweet-talk my husband into rolling that section while I moved on to the other half of the room.

In order to move the washer/dryer as little as possible, we moved it to the center of the closet and worked around it.

Maybe because I don’t have the best eyesight, but it only took one coat of paint! Score! The walls had been primed and painted white during the remodel in 2012 so that helped.

We let it dry a few hours with the doors to the closet and a nearby window open. Then we moved everything back in and stepped back to enjoy the view!

I’ll admit it’s still a far cry from being Pinterest-worthy. But that’ll come with a Phase 2 upgrade when the washing machine quits and hopefully we can get a side-by-side style and relocate the tankless to the outside of that wall. So until then, bright and yellow walls will do!

Anyone have any other ideas for small “Phase 1” things we can do to improve looks and/or functionality? Has anyone done anything similar to their laundry room? Surely I’m not the only one with Pinterest laundry room envy…Comment below!