High Style, Low Cost Laundry Room Makeover

Raise your hand if your laundry room is your favorite spot in your house!

Hmm… not a whole lot of hands out there… But, that’s what we’re here for, to help you make even the laundry room beautiful, on a budget! Our guest today has a fabulous low-cost laundry room makeover to share with you. Less than $100 to create this beauty from a basic builder-grade laundry room:

Keep reading for all the details of Tasha’s under $100 laundry room makeover, and check out some of our other favorite laundry room inspiration:

 

 

 

And now, here’s the lovely and talented Tasha to show you how she made over her laundry room in just a few days, by herself, for under $100.

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High Style, Low Cost Laundry Room Makeover
by Tasha of Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body

Hello fellow Remodelaholics! I am thrilled to be here and in good company with readers who love DIY remodels as much as I do. I still cannot quite believe that I have the honor of guest posting on one of my favorite blogs! I have found so much inspiration from Cassity. Today, I hope you may draw a little inspiration from me.
I am Tasha, from Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body, a lifestyle blog that focuses on thrifty DIY renovations and interior decorating projects. You may have seen how I transformed basic Ikea furniture into custom furniture, my DIY Washi Tape Wall Decals or my Tasteful Princess Room Reveal {for my 3-year-old twin daughters} on Pinterest. As the name of my blog gives away, I am a lawyer by day, and I love what I do. But what feeds my soul is creativity and nothing gets my creative juices flowing more than a good remodel, especially when I have to stick to a budget. My high style, low cost DIY laundry room remodel is a perfect example of that. Check it out.

Now let me tell you how I achieved this beautiful result.

My husband and I purchased a tragically outdated home just over a year ago. EVERY SINGLE ROOM needs to be renovated, which means we really need to be budget conscious along the way. One such room was our tragic laundry room.

YUCK. Can you tell that we took no pride in this room whatsoever?! I mean, the blinds were crooked. We never bothered to straighten them. We just got in and out of the room as quickly as possible… and shut the door behind us.

When I started itching to renovate our laundry room, my husband did not share my enthusiasm. He was reasonably satisfied that we could just keep the door shut and ignore it until we had a bit more money to renovate it down the road. But, I convinced him I could make it fabulous without spending much money. He was skeptical.

I started by “shopping” in my own house. The jumping off point for the room was the curtains, which we had previously used in our dining room, but that had been stored in a chest for way too long. I LOVE the curtains, which I purchased at Ikea. The curtains provided my color palate. Fortunately, I had almost a whole gallon of lovely light green paint on hand that worked perfectly with the curtains.

One Saturday, while my husband was working {he’s a firefighter}, I got busy. I knew if I could get most of the work done before he got home, he would be totally blown away. Bear in mind I was home alone with my sweet twin girls that day as you read this post 🙂 I mention that only as proof that even busy, working parents can accomplish this type of renovation!

The Renovation Timeline

Day 1

Painting the Walls and Cabinets

I started out the morning by removing all the cabinet doors and hardware and priming the cabinets with water based Kilz primer that I already had on hand. I also removed the unfortunate blinds 🙂  The primer dried very quickly, so later that morning, I painted the cabinets. I used an antique white paint that was leftover from some other project, so my out of pocket cost for paint was $0. {Note that I did not take care to keep paint off the floor, since I would be painting it later}.  That afternoon when I put my girls down for their nap, I painted the walls. I used the leftover paint from their nursery. It is a lovely light green color called Soothing Aloe by Valspar. Again, $0 out of pocket. I was off to a good start! After painting the walls, I had time to put another coat of paint on all the cabinets and doors while my girls were still napping. I am a FAST painter. It comes with years of practice 🙂

Painting the Floors

That night, after my girls went to bed, I began to tackle those UGLY linoleum floors. With paint. Yep, you can paint linoleum floors! I had seen the laundry room makeover by Kelly at A View Along the Way and fell in love with her painted linoleum floors, so I gave it a shot. Here’s how I did it:

1) Selected the pattern and colors to use- I opted for a thick striped pattern. Instead of going with start black and stark white, I wanted a softer look, so I used an antique white and charcoal grey. I purchased 1 quart of each color at Lowe’s, which was plenty and cost a total of $30. BE SURE to purchase porch floor paint if you want to paint your floors. It is durable and is intended for foot traffic.

2) Cleared and cleaned the floor area– I was lucky that our laundry room was large enough to scoot the washer and dryer in and out of position to clean and paint the floor underneath it. But, if you are not so lucky, you will have to move those bad boys somewhere else for a few days. After you clear the floor, you need to clean the floor. Make sure it is clear of dust and dirt. Some people recommend using TSP {a heavy duty cleaner}, but I did not have any on hand, so I used my normal floor cleaner {Mrs. Myer’s} and it worked just fine.

3) Primed the floor- Once again, I used the water based Kilz primer that I had on hand to prime the entire floor. I poured it directly on the floor and used a small paint roller to spread it. I only used one coat of primer and that worked just fine. It took about 10 minutes. I did it around 9pm that night and let it dry overnight. 

Day 2

I am not going to lie, I was TIRED the next day, but when my husband got home, he was pleasantly surprised with my progress, so I got a second wind. I forged forward with painting the floors:

4) Painted the floor stripes- THIS was the fun part. I began by painting the entire floor with the antique white color, which I considered my “base” color. I applied TWO coats of the base color. Painting a floor is MUCH faster and easier than painting walls, in my opinion. Each coat took no more than 10 minutes. Fortunately, this paint dries pretty quickly, but I did use a large box fan to speed the process along. After the first coat dried, I took advantage of the dry floor to hang the curtains and my husband rehung the cabinet doors and re-attached the hardware. Then, I put the second coat of the base color on the floor and let it dry overnight.

Day 3

After work and getting the girls to bed on Day 3, I taped off my stripes using regular blue painter’s tape. I used the existing brick pattern of the old floor to determine the width of my stripes, which eliminated the need to measure. Note that my floor had some definite texture to it, so I knew bleeding would happen, but I just rolled with it. I knew it would be an easy fix later. However, if you absolutely want to avoid bleeding, follow this step additional step: After taping your floors, add one more coat of your base color over the entire floor–paint OVER the tape. That will seal the crisp lines and prevent any bleeding. Trust me, it works on textured surfaces.

After I finished taping, I painted the stripes with my dark grey color. Again, I applied two coats of the grey color.  After my stripes were dry, I removed the tape. To fix the minor bleeding that had occurred, I grabbed an angled paint brush and use it to “cut in” along the stripes to make them nice and crisp. It sounds tedious, but this step took me less than 15 minutes.

I know painting the floor sounds like a lot of steps {and it is}, but each step takes no more than 10 to 20 minutes. All of the steps combined took me less than 2 hours {excluding drying time}. The end result is G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S!  But I wasn’t done yet!

Days 4-7 {but only a 15 to 30 minutes per day!}

DIY Concrete Countertop

I created a beautiful DIY concrete countertop by covering the ugly laminate countertop in Ardex Feather Finish, which I also had left over from another project. This product is amazing and it is a totally doable DIY job! Following the directions on the bag, I mixed the concrete and applied one thin coat of the concrete with a wide, metal drywall knife every night for three nights, sanding lightly in between coats. Each coat took only 15 minutes or so. I let each coat dry overnight. After sanding the final coat, I applied a basic concrete sealer, that we also had leftover from another project. Since I had these products on hand, my out-of-pocket cost was $0. As a point of reference, a 10 pound bag of Ardex Feather Finish costs $15 to $20, depending on where you purchase it. This project required about 1/10 of the bag {or 1 pound}.
The Decorative Details

When I was not working on the countertop, I was busy adding decorative details. I hung the FLUFF AND FOLD paper mache letters, which I love. I ordered the letters online from Consumer Crafts and purchased some grey spray paint at Lowe’s Home Improvement to paint them with. The total cost of the letters + the spray paint = $35.

I also added the small rug from Pier One to the floor in front of the sink. It is the same gorgeous teal color that is found in some of the leaves on the Ikea curtains. I purchased it with a gift card that I had received from a family member, so my out of pocket cost was $0.00 {the retail price was $19.00}.

I also found an old, shabby shadow box that was in my attic to make some laundry art. I simply spray painted it black and used a hot glue gun to to glue on $6 worth of clothes pins. I hung it by the door.
I hung the GORGEOUS Ikea curtains. I love them and since I already had them, they cost me $0.
Finally, I cleverly positioned a tall, floor mirror to hide all the ugly plumbing connections {see below}. I already owned the mirror, which was given to me as a gift, and it was being stored in another room. I was glad to finally be able to use it. Another $0 out of pocket accessory. Now, let’s do a quick review of the cost and time frame of this project:

COST

• Leftover primer, wall and cabinet paint- $0
• Old curtains- $0
• Leftover Ardex Feather Finish concrete- $0
• 2 quarts of porch floor paint- $30
• FLUFF and FOLD letters and spray paint- $35
• Clothes pins for shadow box art- $6
• Old shadow box and leftover black spray paint- $0
• Accent rug- $0 out of pocket

TOTAL OUT OF POCKET COST = $71.00

TIME SPENT ON PROJECT

I would say that the renovation took me a total of 12 hours, and I did all the work by myself, with the exception of putting new hinges on the doors and rehanging them {which my husband did}. So, we are talking maybe a total of 13 man hours. I think it’s the best 13 hours I have ever spent on a remodel. I am just GIDDY over the beauty of this room. We NEVER leave the door shut anymore and doing the loads of laundry generated by our precious twin girls seems a little less tedious 🙂

Now that’s what I call a high style, low cost renovation! I hope you can draw some inspiration from it!

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LOVE it, Tasha! The painted floor, the cement countertops — and using what you had on hand already! A perfect budget makeover. 

Remodelaholics, be sure that you go visit Tasha over at Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body to see more of her amazing creativity and style!