For Same Day Service--Do it Yourself!

There has been a dirty little secret in my home from pretty much the day we moved in over 6 years ago: the laundry room. While every room of our home had received at least a coat of paint, this room sat ugly and unloved. Well-used for sure, but an eyesore. The biggest frustration for me was the lack of storage and how to utilize the space. I also detested the open shelf and the fact that the tops of the washer and dryer became the landing zone for any and everything. I searched all over for ideas, measured a million different angles and talked it over with the hubby many many times. He didn't feel like there was really anything wrong with the way that it was, but because he is the best husband in the world and loves me, he  went along with my vision and (I think) he now loves it as much as I do.

The biggest thing I kept coming back to was stacking our washer and dryer to improve the use of the vertical space in the room. The heavens opened and angels were singing on the day I discovered that I possessed the hardware necessary already (came with the machines) and the instructions for how to stack them. Now if only the ceilings were high enough...they were! So one day in March I decided the time had come and convinced Andrew to take the shelving down in prep for the stacking.

I still can't believe how ugly the before is:

 Andrew is such a stud! Love that he would willingly do this kind of thing to go along with my whims.

After all the junk was out of there we had my brother come over and help Andrew lift that dryer on top of the washer. I looked in our garage at what paint we had and found almost a full gallon of the paint from our bedroom. Love it! I painted the walls and ceiling and the boys did the heavy lifting. Once the paint was on the walls and the floors were "clean" I realized that I really needed to do something about that nasty linoleum. It was peeling up from the floor by the door to the garage and at some point it had torn up from the washer being moved over it in one spot. I hated the pattern anyways. When we redid our bathroom I had covered up the floor with peel and stick tile and still had almost a full box in the garage. So I went to town...ran out when I was thisclose to being done and decided that I might as well get enough to do the floor in the main bath as well and get that ugly floor out of my entire home for good!

(At this point I realize that I am totally the mouse from the book "If you give a mouse a cookie...")

Drum roll please........

Tada!

We added a cupboard for storage. I threw out a ton of stuff I had not used once since originally putting it up on that shelf and put up a DIY shelf and table top. I still don't know how I managed to pull off that folding table! 

As with all of my DIY projects if you look close enough you will find the imperfections (what I call "character"), but when you have almost no budget for a project that ends up making such a huge impact on your home and daily life they are easily overlooked. I actually enjoy doing laundry more than ever now! The older boys fold and put away their own clothes which is fabulous. Another thing I did that has changed my life for the better is that I eliminated the hampers from the bedrooms. Our house is one level and the rooms are all in a row right close to the laundry room so the hampers were really unnecessary. It took a couple weeks for everyone to get used to it, but it works like a charm now. Jonathan and Reagan actually sort their own clothes into the correct hamper 99% of the time on their own!

 

This system has been wonderful for me and our family. I am motivated to wash at least one load a day so it doesn't pile up and since I got rid of all but one laundry basket I can't let the clean clothes accumulate. They get folded as the come out of the dryer. I love a good system that turns out to be easily maintained!!