before & after laundry room

who doesnt love a good before and after? i thought i would share a project that is finally finished in our house. it all started way back in june. we purchased some cabinets for our laundry room from a habitat for humanity re-store (i love scouring these places for some good finds). i think we got 6 cabinets for $60! even though they had about an inch of grease on them and were yucky wood....i knew they would clean up well:)  of course i forgot to take photos of them before....but you will see the after....in a minute.

we originally had wire shelving in the laundry room that came with the house. as i am sure many of you know...wire shelving is the pits!  everything falls over, a total mess. of course i dont have before photos of these either! what i do have is this before/during photo of the laundry room...

this is after sanding, priming and painting the cabinets (i was still working on the doors). if you look really close...under one of the left cabinets you can see a hole? that was our first set back. when kevin put them up, he had a nailer below to keep them all level...when he took the nailer off...a nice chunk of the wall came with it!

soooo....one week this summer when kevin was travelling for work...i decided i was going to really finish this laundry room. and i did...or so i thought. until i discovered about 3 weeks after finishing that kevin had (accidentally) screwed into a pipe when putting up the cabinets!  (ahh...live and learn) it had been slowly leaking behind one of the cabinets for about 2 months. so down came one of the cabinets... the pipe got fixed...new drywall went in....and the cabinet back up. and that brings us to october:)  but as most DIY projects go in our house....5 months is about right!

now that you are all caught up and on the edge of your seats! here is the after...

ahh...much better dont you think? here is another before and after of the other side of the room...

this little power house laundry room doubles as a mudroom:) here are more details....i added some lucite knobs to the cabinet doors. my sister-in-law gave me the idea of adding the fabric behind the washer and dryer to cover up all of the plugs and wires...thanks Liz!

i have a bunch of these old gas station pricing numbers. i decided to put the year we got married up...

i am noticing a definite pattern with me lately...i like painting on burlap!  i love the way this sink skirt turned out!

oh and this chandelier was from one of my clients who didnt want it for her daughters room....it was white so i gave it a little face lift with dark gray paint...and accented with gold.

last but not least here is the valance i made out of a ticking stripe. i cannot sew...but i can work miracles with stitch witchery!

i hope you enjoyed this little tour. i love my laundry room now:) it was worth all of the effort. unfortunately it hasnt helped me do the laundry and better or faster:(

i have been getting a lot done on my house list lately. stay tuned for photos of my kids bedrooms....

jodie