When we moved into our home in 2016, I knew we’d be investing a lot of money into the home. Sure it was a new build, but nothing about our home was customized. In previous homes, the furniture and decor we had just… worked. I was never truly happy, but I also didn’t want to spend $1,000’s of dollars on things that may not fit into the rooms of our forever home. Going about decorating like that may sound weird, but it worked for us. Once we were in our home, it was time to get to work. On a limited budget, I decided to work room by room decorating each space until I was happy with it then moving to the next. It’s finally time to work on upstairs, and I knew just what room had to be fixed up first – The laundry room!
Laundry Room Makeover on a Budget
It’s completely and utterly not functional. It’s a pretty small space but enough to move around. Plus, it’s upstairs where 4 out of the five bedrooms are, so that made it a huge win in my book. But without a window, it was a dark place I never wanted to be in. Something needed to be done before I lost my mind.
Laundry Room Makeover DIY
Notice the lack of shelves? How is someone supposed to work in this place? I did have a 3-tier plastic bin that I was using and it “worked” but no, I needed a real laundry room. Time to get to work.
Laundry Room Makeover On a Budget
First, I painted the room. Our entire house was white but no, not covered in white paint, just white primer. Seriously, talk about lazy builders. I couldn’t even wash the walls because the drywall would then crumble away. For the laundry room, I went with Alabaster by Sherwin Williams. It’s a pretty off-white that I’ve been dying to use. I also knew I wanted shiplap in the room. As I said, it’s a smaller space, so I figured just putting shiplap on the main wall would be better than all over.
After searching Pinterest for hours upon hours of how to install shiplap, I took a shortcut because of time and money. Ready for this?
Shiplap wallpaper! Yep, It’s peel-and-stick wallpaper. I needed just one roll of this stuff. The packaging says it doesn’t work on textured walls, but I went for it anyway and so far, so good. Installing the wallpaper was easy peasy. A little measuring and cutting with a box cutter and I had the paper up in about 20 minutes flat without the help of my hubby.
I only did half the wall with the wallpaper 1) because the washer and dryer cover the wall and 2) to save time. So to prevent the this-is-definitely-wallpaper-because-it’s-still-flush-with-the-rest-of-the-wall look I added a piece of chair rail left over from the bedroom makeover we previously did.
Directly over the chair rail, we installed a custom shelf. We made the long shelf simply by cutting a 1×8 pine board to size and stained it in “Dark Walnut” by Minwax. To save money in the long run, we bought the pine and chair rail in 12′ long pieces. The brackets holding the shelf up are from Hobby Lobby. I waited until they were 50% off then snagged 4 of them for $2 each.
Above that, we installed two cabinets that we found on sale at Lowes and added hardware to each one, also from Lowes.
For the flooring, I painted it! Once you have the floor stencil of your choice on hand stenciling your floor is easy. You can find out how to easily paint your floor in this post!
PROJECT DETAILS
Wall paint color – Alabaster by Sherwin Williams
Shiplap Wallpaper –
Cabinet pulls –Liberty 3″ from Home Depot
Wreath – Signature Magnolia wreath from Magnolia
Glass containers – Anchor Glass Jar from Target (1 gal and .5 gal)
Labels – Handmade on a Cricut cutter from Michaels
Wood shelf hardware –Black Flat Metal Bracket from Hobby Lobby
Floor design – Stencil (I would not recommend the company).
Floor paint – Primer base: Zinsser Bonding Primer. White, not tinted. Black: Tricorn Black by Sherwin Williams.
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FIND MORE HOME DIY PROJECTS
See how I created a Faux Brick Wall in my master bedroom here!
See how I changed my laminate “granite” counters to Italian marble here!
