Hello and welcome to Homespun by Laura!  I can’t believe it’s been five months since my last blog post, but there’s nothing like the One Room Challenge to give you that extra little push to get back on track!

During last fall’s ORC, I focused on our upstairs office and learned that participating in the challenge kept me focused on the project, so I decided to join in again!  Click here for more on last year’s Home Office/Sewing Room redo.

This year, I decided to transform our laundry room, which is about a fifth of the size of the office…so it can’t be too hard, right? 🙂

The problem
When we toured this house in 2009, the laundry room looked like this:

Welcome home.

I wasn’t interested in painting at the time, so I started looking for easy ways to fix this big red problem.  After about a year of the weird clashing floral border and bright red walls, I found a cute chef border that I used to cover the flowers.  I added some chef decor and called it a day.  I really liked the idea of having chefs in my kitchen, but I also liked the idea of red, white, and chefs going together, so into the laundry room they went, killing two birds with one stone.

I really do like my dancing chefs, as out of place as they may be.

A few years passed during which I liked being greeted by chefs every day when I came home.  A few more years passed during which I started thinking about how weird it was to have chefs in a laundry room.

This was the ‘After’ for about 3 years.

Over the next few years, still trying to avoid painting the room, I made a roman shade to replace the ugly floral valance left by the previous owners that matched neither the walls nor the floral wallpaper border…

…I painted a cabinet door I found at the Habitat Store that we used to hide the fuse box…

…and I painted the cabinet knobs and hinges black.

Not long after I put all this effort into making the room look better without going to the trouble of painting it…the red just got to me.  I decided it was finally time to paint it – like we should have done in the first place!  

The Plan
An idea started to form in my head, inspired by this pen and ink print I bought in Paris when I visited in 2005 with my parents, along with all the other black and white pieces I’ve added to the room over time.  The wall will go gray and the decor will be black and white, hopefully with a little Parisian/French twist to go along with the print.  To keep up the monochrome theme, I’ll find a couple more black and white drawings or pictures to adorn the walls.

I would never normally stack pictures like this, but there happened to be  two screws there and this was the easiest laziest way to cover them!

I chose the same gray paint that we used in the office for a little bit of continuity between these adjoining rooms (in the photo above, the door on the right leads to the office).  Plus, I’ve been kind of obsessed with it since I saw it on the wall the first time.

Since the rest of the room will be kind of a monochrome gray-black-white design, I’ll be able to use the same roman shade, cabinet knobs, and key hanger/shelf by the door, saving time and money!

I was pretty excited when I found a light switch plate at the Charleston Market  a few years ago that perfectly matched my dancing chefs!

I’ve been trying to find a good place to store the ironing board in the office (confession: I typically only use the iron when sewing…rarely do I iron our clothes!), but there isn’t a good place.  It just winds up leaned against the wall, and it freaks the dogs out.  I plan to hang it in the laundry room, which is just at the bottom of the steps to the office and will provide easy access to the ironing board when I’m sewing.  And since it’ll be easy to get to, maybe I’ll be more likely to iron clothes, too…  I’d also like to replace the ugly, stained cover that came on the board, but I haven’t found one I love yet.  Something like this might do; I love the stripes!

Source

A new shelf to replace the metal one (hidden in the corner under dirty laundry) would be nice, but it must be open at the back since the only air vent in the room is behind it.

Some kind of console table with drawers would be perfect, but I’m not sure my budget (as close to free as possible) and what’s available will match up!

I saw this console table at an unfinished furniture store’s going out of business sale recently, but it was too wide for the space.  Also, there are no drawers!

Recently, the dog leash system has been bothering me, so I’m considering a different option for storing them.

That’s the plan.  Things are busy around here, so I wanted to keep things fairly simple as I train for my third train for my third marathon, plan a trip to Europe, and create inventory for a December craft market!

Take a look at what the other participants are working on here.  I hope you’ll join me again next week to see how the new paint looks!