Now I WANT To Be In My Laundry Room!

I recently completed redecorating my laundry room, all because of a light.  We had a big fluorescent light in there that I really didn't like.  We've never changed one of those out in a house before, so we didn't really know what to expect once we got it down.  Thankfully, it was just a regular hole and connections like any other ceiling light fixture.  I had purchased an iron chandelier from a thrift store over a year ago thinking my sister might want to use it in her new house but it didn't work out for her.  Yea for me! My plans were to just paint it and have my handsome helper install it, but that started a big snowball rolling for a redo. 

One night while my youngest sister was visiting (who is very hip and cool and creative!) I asked for her thoughts on a fun color for the light.  At this time, the laundry room was a celery/sagey green that we had painted when we moved in.  I really wasn't planning on re-painting, just spiffing it up a bit.  She looked around and said "I'm really loving the navy/coral color combo right now," and I thought "I am too!"  At the time I was seeing some coral on blogs and really liked the bright pop of color.  I had nothing like that color combo in my house but the more I thought about it, I decided to go for it!  Although I knew I didn't want a dark navy in such a small, dark room, I love the color that we painted my son's room and thought it would be perfect.  It's a blue-ish smoky gray which I'm sorry to say I don't have the name of.  I wanted to make this a really fun room and could really do whatever I wanted since it's totally set apart and didn't have to blend with the rest of the house.

So, here's the before shots (after I had already done some clean-up.  Why is the laundry room always such a dumping ground? At least for me it is!).  Nothing was really connected and I had temporarily clipped that fabric up for a curtain to see if I liked it, 

OVER A YEAR AGO! 

 

And the other side:

And, the after! 

It's so nice to just have everything fresh and clean!

Here's the light that started the ball rolling.  Sorry for the bad picture, but I'm still working on my photography skills and it's really hard to photograph lighting!  The color is Behr "Lipstick" and it's a great bright-orangey coral.  I started off by brushing this when I couldn't find anything close to a coral colored spray paint.  It was awful trying to coat all of those arms and twisty iron parts.  I finally improvised and gathered up a pump aeresol bottle, watered down my paint pretty thin and sprayed it with the pump.  It's definitely not perfect, but it's way up on the ceiling and no one can see it up close!  My parents' garage is a treasure trove, and they have a huge box full of a variety of crystal prisms, so I borrowed a few to bling it up.  I also covered the candle covers with scrapbook paper, being careful to trim it enough so that the paper wouldn't touch the bulbs. 

I also couldn't resist these new knobs from Hobby Lobby.  How perfect are those?

I painted the sink cabinet base black.  Someday we'll redo that little strip of counter and sink, but it's usually full of paintbrushes and splatters anyway.  The curtain is a scrap of this fabric that I had left over from making some pillows.  I wanted something colorful to tie together the coral and blue, and you can't beat free!  It is tied up with a few strips of zebra ribbon and hot-glued onto the metal frame of the blinds.  I searched around town for a zebra rug but could not find a good one, so I checked Ebay and got a super deal on a great rug.  

 I LOVE the gallery wall and just stand at the door and stare at all of the pictures.  The day I was wrapping up the painting I had to run in to Hobby Lobby and happened upon the 80% off aisle, where I found those awesome black frames with blue polka dots.  Could not have been a better fit if I had planned it from the beginning.  All of the other frames I had and just sprayed them all black so they would be uniform.  I'll be sharing more details on the gallery wall soon.  I think I'll probably continue it around the rest of the room...it would be great to fill the walls with treasured memories and loving faces. 

Backpack/jacket hooks-I've had this coat rack for a long time but painted it using a stencil from-you guessed it-Hobby Lobby.  My kids are actually using the hooks.  Yea!  I do enjoy having this side entrance door, but the laundry room was usually too trashed to bring friends through that way.  Now it's so nice to have an inviting entrance for back-door guests.  We all know they're the best anyway, right?

Well, laundry still isn't too much fun to do, but at least I enjoy my space when I'm washing and folding now!