Room Reveal: Laundry Area, Before and After!

Apparently, last weekend was a pretty big deal for football types. Since The Man of the House had football-related plans for much of the weekend, I decided it was the perfect time for me to tackle one of the many long-overdue home projects I've been meaning to get to. So while The Man was occupied yelling obscenities at the TV, I decided to redo our dreadful and dreary basement laundry area.

The laundry area of our home was pretty much the most depressing place in the world to be... dark, ugly, miserable. It's in the unfinished part of our basement, which is VERY unfinished. The walls are a hodge-podge of various scraps of paneling, with glimpses of stone foundation and insulation here and there. There are tangles of wires and pipes everywhere. It's really awful. Just about a year ago, my old washer died, and I replaced it with a beautiful new matching washer and dryer... first matching set I've ever had! I really wanted to make the space a little more worthy of such a nice new washer and dryer, and I wanted to make it a nicer space to be in while I'm washing, drying and folding all those clothes.

I've been giving out "sneak peeks" of this project on Instagram, but now it's time for the big reveal! So here we go... here is the Before (taken in the midst of a day of laundry, no tidying up for the picture! This is the "real deal," embarrassing as it may be:

Awful. Not at all a nice place to do laundry! 

And... After!

Still an ugly basement, but much improved, no? I fixed up the walls by
putting up some white pegboard. To hide the ugly electrical boxes over the
washer, I put up a curtain. Now I can pretend that behind the curtain is a
bright, sunny window. (if I pretend really hard!)

There wasn't much to do about the ugly concrete floor without spending
a ton of money, but I do think this bright cheery rug helps a bit.
 It's also much nicer to stand on than the cold floor.

The shelf over the dryer holds my laundry soap, a cup for pocket change, a
jar of OxiClean for stains, and a crocheted basket for my dryer balls. 

Wool dryer balls... a green alternative to chemically dryer sheets.

Bins for clean, folded laundry, ready to be put away.

A basket for odd socks looking for their mates, and a little tin pail for
 "Lost and Found" (all the legos, rocks, marbles, earbuds and stuff left in pockets) 

It's not perfect, but for $100 and a weekend of work, it's an OK little "facelift" for the space. Anything to make laundry a little more pleasant, right? ;)