Friday, August 19, 2011

Laundry Room Facelift

I mentioned a while back that we were working on fixing up our laundry room. This house is nearly 112 years old, which makes it all kinds of "charming." However, the basement laundry room was beyond disgusting and not charming at all. It's pretty common for these old houses to have sketchy basements. When we were considering purchasing this house, it was definitely on the "con" list. Adam promised that we could make it nicer. So, three years later, we finally tackled this project. I will walk you through the before and after.
Floor was previously painted but it was chipping everywhere and just felt dirty. The washing machine had a rusty exterior.
Check out this freak-fest! The walls had paint chipping and some funky mold. To be fair, this photo was taken after I scraped a lot of the paint. It didn't look this bad, but close. 
After I scraped the chipped paint and washed the walls with bleach and water, I painted everything with a pale blue exterior wall paint. I decided to paint the pipes so that it looked more finished. For the floor, we chose Rust-Oleum Epoxyshield Garage Floor Paint. It's awesome! It has a glossy finish and almost feels like linoleum. It's super durable and feels so clean. We replaced the washing machine, added some better lighting, and I sewed some curtains to cover up the freaky windows.
My mom suggested that we add a folding table to make it look more like a laundry room. We found a prefab counter top and Adam built a frame to support it. I love this folding table. It is so handy to just take the clothes right out of the dryer and have a place to fold everything.
Considering what we started out with, I am so pleased with the result! I think it will make a potential buyer feel better about the laundry room being in the basement. Now... on to the next project!

5 comments:

jenny goodman said...

Cutest laundry room I've ever seen!

Eileen said...

Very nice job. Love the folding table and curtains...makes huge difference

Julie said...

Wow- looks awesome! 100% better

Anonymous said...

Very nice. Certainly a lot of gratification in getting this project completed. Now you can feel clean while taking care of washing and folding. Hard work pays off. Now all you need is a TV in the basement to watch while doing the wash and folding clothes!

Emily Adamson said...

I'm so jealous of your new washing machine and folding table! I'd love to have a folding table! Nice work, I bet the "clean floor" look and feel is the best part.