The Laundry Room

If there is one room of the house that I am guaranteed to spend time working in each weekend it is the laundry room. So from day one giving our new laundry room a make-over was high on my to do list.

I started out by using Kilz 2 over the murals previously painted on the walls. Then, I went to town with Behr Indoor Satin paint in a Valspar gray (Stratus 335-3). In general, we use flat paint on our walls but with the laundry room I went with satin because it enables the walls to be cleaned – good for laundry rooms, bathrooms, kid’s rooms and the kitchen. It only took one good coat with quite a bit of touch up by hand.

I also painted the trim using Bier Premium Plus Ultra (glossy) in a slightly off white (Popcorn W-B-200). Popcorn is the trim color we are using throughout the house. This particular Behr paint is a two in one paint - it primes and paints in one step – i.e. no roughing up the base boards with sand paper. I had to apply two coats to the trim but it was well worth it to skip the sanding step.

Picking out a shade of gray is difficult. Home Depot sells Behr paint samples in a flat finish for under $3. I highly recommend trying out your color with a sample first. My lesson learned however is that you need to paint a fairly large portion of the wall to really get a feel for the color. I still love the shade of gray that we ended up with however; it turned out slightly more blue than the smaller sample I painted.

On occasion Behr has mail-in rebates (1 gallon and 5 gallon) which make painting even more affordable. Also, if you chose a flat finish for your walls the sample you previously purchased is the perfect size to keep for touch ups!

Here are the before, during and after pictures. Our laundry room has very high ceilings and isn’t very well lit so I got a small lamp from Wal-Mart which also helped to soften the room. I also bought the decorative S at Wal-Mart. Everything else is either homemade or something I already had but wasn’t using in any other room. I love the way the gray walls make the white cabinets stand out!

Help Needed!!

In our quest to make our house a home I have spent quite a bit of time focusing on The Master Bedroom (more pictures to come soon). We are loving our new bedroom furniture but I am having an issue and I need your help! Our dresser came with a mirror however (as you can see in the reflection) we decided to use our dresser as a TV stand. That leaves us with this mirror...

So call us crazy but we think this mirror looks kind of odd hanging on the wall all alone. I think it is because the base of the mirror is more narrow than the top. So, we came up with a solution - to get a piece of furniture to sit under the mirror. This is slightly problematic for two reasons. One, the piece must be at least 46 inches wide (to match the width of the top of the mirror) and most accent tables are not that large. Two, it can't be very deep because it is in a high traffic area and anything we put here is going to significantly shrink our walkway. So...here are a few of my ideas...PLEASE tell me what you think and feel free to suggest something of your own!

Option One. I like this piece because it gives me lots of space to decorate and it could be used in just about any room of the house later if I ever decide to change things up (like I would ever get the wild idea to move things around...ha..not me!). However, the downside is that it has lots of space that I would have to decorate and I am not sure what I would do with it.


Option Two. Okay, so this is not a traditional bedroom piece and I am sure Blake (being the traditionalist) won't like the idea of having it in the bedroom. However, I have ALWAYS wanted one of these and we really don't have any other place in the house for one. It will also be going in a place that would be great for sitting to put on shoes or tossing my purse. I could also get some pillows and jazz it up a bit...not to mention all the great storage space it provides...did I make a good enough case?


Option Three. Okay, this is my least favorite but it has its benefits. Like Option two, it provides seating and I could get pillows for it. However, that is far as my decorating ability will take me with this one.

What do you guys think!? Help me out!!

House to Home

We are working diligently to make our new house a home. Each week we hang a few new pictures and unpack a few boxes. Blake is working very hard on the garage. Everything is really coming together. Right now we aren't buying anything new for any room except The Master Bedroom. So, I am having fun decorating the rest of the house with things we already had. Here are a few pictures...

The "Reading Room" aka formal living room

guest bathroom

guest bedroom

family room

entry hall

The Master Bedroom

So, what have we been up to these last few weeks? Well, a little of this and a little of that. Mostly school, work, more work, unpacking, cleaning, organizing and a little decorating. Oh...and fixing all the things that keep breaking - the truck windows, the hot tub, the couch...you get the idea. It's been an interesting last few weeks.

Despite everything else that has been going on, we have managed to work a little on making our house a home. I have been a little overwhelmed in trying to decide which rooms to work on first. We finally decided that the master bedroom would work best. We have always wanted new bedroom furniture. We have greatly appreciated all our hand me downs but we are starting to out grow them! So, it was to The Dump.

We were pleasantly surprised by their selection. However, I would say it is a place to buy, not browse - luckily, we had already shopped the more conventional furniture stores. So, knowing what our other options were, it was easy to decide that the The Dump had a suite that was affordable and that we really liked.

I also decided to make a few trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Garden Ridge to finish the room out. It was fun making a few new flower arrangements! There are still a few things on my to do list (a rug, curtains, painting the walls, etc) but I am SO happy with the way things are going so far!