Making Our Home: LAUNDRY ROOM

Today I wanted to share pictures of our laundry room.  I am beyond pleased with how the laundry room turned out.  It feels so cool, organized, and functional now!

Let's start with the before pictures.  There were actually things I liked about the laundry room when it was in it's original state- I liked how large it was, that it had a window, and that it had several cabinets, a counter top and sink!  

I don't have to tell you what I didn't like...take a look at the before pictures...

yellow linoleum that wasn't just unappealing to the eye-it was also damaged with a big black spot under where someones dryer had sat.

Vinyl shade on the window

The night we closed on the house John and his Dad got in the laundry room and got right to work!  They ripped up all the linoleum.  We were relieved that the black spot under the clothes dryer was only on the linoleum and not the subfloor!  After the ripped it all up, John sanded the subfloor with an electric sander in some spots where there was still glue from the previous flooring.  

We then painted the walls Woodlawn Blue (a Benjamin Moore color bought in Behr paint).   We painted the baseboards Dove White (again, a Benjamin Moore color bought in Behr paint) I think this color makes the laundry room feel light and airy especially with the natural light from the window!

We then had tile laid, and we chose a pewter color grout.  I was very pleased with how this tile color, grout color, and wall color looked together.

Pretty unexciting-but we put an overflow drip pan under the hot water heater since there wasn't one there before!

And we had blinds installed on the laundry room window too.

Next after sealing the grout, we had a couple friends help us move the washer and dryer into the laundry room.

Then we realized that while there was  ton of space there was no area to hang ironing.  So we had a bar for hanging and a shelf hung over the washer and dryer.

Then I mentioned to John that with ALL the laundry we do with three little kids it would be nice to have a shelf to put the laundry baskets on in the laundry room.  I do laundry every day, place it in each room's laundry basket, but only put it away at the end of the week when the basket is full.  I showed John a picture I had seen on Pinterest and we did something very similar...

This is also nice because it somewhat hides the hot water heater from view when you walk in the room too!

I'm SO happy with how this looks!!!! And it's so practical!!

About a week before we moved to our new house, Nora Kate tried to sit on one rung of my floor standing drying rack I had in our previous laundry room and the whole thing broke.  I decided that since we had to get a new one anyway, I wanted to get a wall mount one to save space this time around.  First I ordered and Ikea one, it was horrible!  Then John ordered this one, and it was so much better! I love being able to hang the cloth diapers (and other air dry items-although I use it daily for the diapers so that's what it's for more than anything else!) on the wall and not loose any floor space.

Holds A LOT of diapers!

This isn't the best picture because the lighting is off and the walls aren't there true color, but you can see how small the wall mount drying rack fold up to be!!

So our laundry room is complete.  Again, I'm so happy with how this room turned out!

Here are a few more "after" photos!

We were pleased with the transition from the laundry room to kitchen too

View from laundry room to kitchen.

See...by the end of the week that bar holds a lot of laundry!

:)

The tile and pewter grout.

Making Our Home: DINING ROOM (update 1)

Yesterday I shared pictures of our updates to Nora Kate's room which wasn't horribly dated compared to other rooms-so today I wanted to share a room that was REALLY dated-the dining room!  I'm titling this "update 1" because hopefully down the road there will be an "update 2" when we change the brass chandelier, and further down the road an "update 3" when we do-away with the carpet in the dining room.  But for now, the brass chandelier and carpet are still in the room.  I'm very pleased with how it looks after "update 1"!!

So here are the before pictures...

View from foyer

view from kitchen

Panoramic photo to get the full impact of this blue wallpaper!

No window coverings

This room was our first experience using Benjamin Moore's Fresh Start.  As I've mentioned before it's a primer that goes over wallpaper that cannot be removed. Here we didn't realize we would have to remove the border and sand all the seams, so we just started rolling the fresh start on...and we let Dawson help...

It's funny to look at this picture because this was the last area we taped to paint.  After this we started saving time by not taping and just being careful, and it actually ended up being much easier!

We quickly realized though that all the seams were visible, so we stopped what we were doing.  We used a steamer to steam the border off the wall all the way around.  It wasn't too bad because it was glued on top of the wallpaper.  The next step was sanding all the wallpaper seams with an electric sander.  Finally we got back to painting the primer (Fresh Start) on the walls.  While the walls were drying with Fresh Start we painted the window trim, baseboards, and crown molding with Benjamin Moore's color Dove White in Behr paint.  This was time consuming because there was a lot to paint Dove White in this room.  

Next we started painting the actual color on the wall.  John and I both were beyond pleased with the color we picked!  We used Revere Pewter (a Benjamin Moore color in Behr paint).

Here are a few work in progress shots...
(as you can tell it's dark when we were painting because it was after the kids went to bed!)

Excited to check it the next day (above) in the sunlight after it had dried!

These pictures were fun for us when we were tackling a lot with the house at one time.  So this was one of the first rooms we painted...the top picture here is the Friday that we closed and the bottom picture was just two days after closing on the house!  What a difference, huh?!

So now, for the pictures of the finished room as it is now...

I also should add that in addition  to the above described work on this room, we also had blinds installed and shampooed the carpet since purchasing the house.

This was one of the first rooms that came together, and is still one of my favorites.  John and I both really like this color (Revere Pewter) and how nice the crown molding looks in the dining room now that it has been painted.  One other little trick we did in the dining rooms and in all the other rooms too, is after all the paint dries we caulk along the tops of the baseboards (and the underside of the crown molding).  This gives the paint job a *perfect* look!  It really makes it look finished. Such a small little touch!  It's also probably one of Dawson's favorite ways to help us.  He's great at helping John caulk the baseboards!

I'm very pleased with how our dining room was brought from 1987 to 2015!!  Goodbye blue wallpaper!!!

Remember our laundry room....with the ugly yellow linoleum?  I think I'll share those photos next!

Making Our Home: NORA KATE'S ROOM

Nora Kate's room was definitely not one of the worse rooms in the house in terms of being outdated, but our changes still made a big difference!

When we started out Nora Kate's room didn't have any wall paper which was very exciting-as most rooms had wallpaper and/or borders to contend with.  

The room didn't have any blinds or overhead lighting, the walls were white (almost like they had never been painted?!), and the baseboards were in dire need of painting.  The room had these curtains which we quickly took down and disposed of.  

We had blinds installed.

We had a ceiling fan light fixture installed.  We are going with the oil rubbed bronze look, and I'm very pleased with it!  It's also simply nice to have over head lighting in this room!

We painted the baseboards and all the trim with Behr paint in the color of Benjamin Moore Dove White.

Our main color for the rest of the house is Shaker Beige (more about this in future posts), but I knew after her previous room had been pink I didn't want pink walls again.  I also knew I wanted something a little softer than the Shaker Beige.  Lennox Tan is in the same family just a shade or two lighter, and we selected this for Nora Kate's room!  Lennox Tan is another Benjamin Moore color, and we did our usual-getting the Benjamin Moore color-matched in the Behr paint.  This Behr paint plus primer is AMAZING!  It goes on so nicely and only takes 1 coat!  There are usually a couple spots here and there that require touch up, but that's it!

I think  her room still looks soft, and girly-even without the pink walls.  In fact, I think I like this combo even better!  

So now, time for the pictures....

BEFORE

BEFORE

looking in

looking in

Nora Kate's room

I'm very pleased with how it turned out!

Nora Kate's room wasn't a huge transformation compared to the rooms that have wallpaper and border, so check back soon for our update on the dining room...remember that blue wallpaper and border?!