A “Blindingly White and Boring” Laundry Room Gets a Dreamy Farmhouse Makeover
One thing you probably shouldn’t take for granted if you have it in your home or apartment? In-unit laundry. Homeowners Krystine Pethan (@interiorniche) and her husband were so excited to have their first laundry room that they decided to transform it into a dream laundry room.
“When we moved into our home, our laundry was blindingly white and boring!” Krystine says, and the room hadn’t been updated since 1989, when the house was built. “The cabinets above the washer and dryer made the room feel super small and heavy,” Krystine adds. “The cabinets were also not reachable. We loved the layout but knew we needed to make it a more functional space.” Krystine and her husband DIYed their dream laundry setup for $850 (excluding appliances).
Removing the clunky cabinets made the space feel larger.
The couple’s first step was demoing out the cabinets. Although it was slightly difficult to fit the large cabinets through the laundry room doorway, “that made the biggest difference by far,” Krystine says. “It opened the room up and made it feel huge.”
She and her husband installed two open shelves where the cabinetry once was. “We upcycled the butcher block shelves from leftover boards we had from a previous project,” Krystine explains. “We installed metal rods and drilled holes in the shelves. Then we hung the shelves above the washer and dryer.”
Krystine says this storage is much easier to reach than the cabinets from before. “We also love the wood countertop above the washer and dryer for folding clothes,” she says.
Peel-and-stick beadboard was a makeover superhero.
One of Krystine’s favorite details of the project is actually behind the shelving. What might look like real beadboard is actually peel-and-stick wallpaper. “Everyone thinks it’s really wood,” she says. “We plan to use it in other places in our house!”
She adds that the peel-and-stick product is quite versatile because you can paint it. Krystine and her husband went with a dark green, Sherwin-Williams’ Dried Thyme.
The DIYer is especially proud of the aesthetics.
“There is not anything we would do differently,” Krystine says. “The only thing would be painting the ceiling green. Originally, we left the ceiling white, but after the project was complete, we decided to paint it. That created a mess and way more work than if we would have done it right away.”
In addition to green paint and shelving, Krystine added artwork, LVT flooring, a leaded window cling, and a stool from Target. “Just because your laundry room is small doesn’t mean it can’t be functional or beautiful!” Krystine says.
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