Pink Laundry Room
I'll just go ahead and preface this whole post with - doing the laundry is not just my job. We pretty much try to share the household chores equally. Coach can (and does) laundry too...however, he is not home most weeknights and a lot of weekends, so by default the laundry room turns into a place I get to be really (unfortunately) familiar with on a weekly basis. #SomebodyNeedsAHobby! Because it's a place I frequent, I wanted to at least make it a little fun for me to be around.
My Gran has always had light pink countertops in her kitchen and as I grew older, I always thought that was so pretty. I didn't know it until recently, but she also used to have pink appliances too. How fun! I sure wish I had a photograph of that. Pink isn't always seen as a color you can decorate your home with (outside of the 1960's), but I say if you love it, you can do whatever you want.
Turns out, finding the RIGHT shade of pink paint is just about as hard as white and gray. There's so many to choose from. To be honest, I may or may not have taken my new-at-the-time debut Harry Style's album into the Home Depot paint area to compare pinks. Y'all...I wanted Harry bath water pink. After much deliberation and side-by-side comparisons, I found the one. Behr Sweet Tart (M160-3) turned out to be exactly what I wanted.
I ended up using my full color sample first and realized the small wall I was covering was nearly complete! So, I just went and bought one more sample. Not sure if I saved much money, but I did save a lot of wasted paint!
Once the wall was pretty in pink and the new floors were in place, it was time to add accessories and update some of the features of the room/closet. One of the things I did immediately was use a tension curtain rod and some plain white LILL lace curtains from IKEA to hide the not-so-pretty hot water heater area. It's still easily accessible, the curtains don't touch anything hot and it no longer kills my vibe.
The little bit of lighting in the room, which used to be just a single bulb, has been covered in this fun KRUSNING Pendant lamp shade from IKEA. I saw this on display and thought, 'That totally looks like a pile of white towels, fresh from the dryer!" It belonged in a laundry room!
As far as decorations go, I wanted to keep it pretty simple considering I'd be using a lot of the useful laundry supplies to "decorate" the shelf anyway.
This 'I do all of my ironing in the dryer" framed print speaks to me on the deepest level, as it is a motto I live by. I found it on the clearance aisle of Hobby Lobby. The other framed print is just a piece of an old sheet off my Stendig Calendar, cut to size.
As one does, I balanced out the shelf with one of my favorite candles and a small FEJKA plant from IKEA.
For the things I'd actually be USING in the room, I wanted to find a couple ways to make them a little prettier than just all boxes and packaging. This large jar from IKEA was perfect for holding the detergent pods. For the other containers, I got a little help from 1987...
The ornate bowl and cake stand are part of my mom and dad's wedding china. The barely-touched, totally-useless-otherwise wedding china, that is. They hold my favorite dryer balls and a few other necessities - dryer sheets, all-purpose cleaner and silica gel packets.
As I have done for several years, the appliances don't get left out in the decorating department. I've always been inspired by this post from A Beautiful Mess with the graphic look of the black-on-white and the washer and dryer. It inspired the gold stripes in our last apartment.
For the stripes, I used electric tape and did my best to make the lines straight. To make the dots just a little different than ABM Elsie's, I wanted to go with more Dalmatian spots than polka dots. I drew the spots on a sheet of paper with a permanent marker, then converted it into my Cricut software to cut on black vinyl. If you want the Dalmatian print PDF, click below:
This was one of the first "rooms" in our first home I was able to complete and it's proven to be the most functional and frequently-used spaces. Does the pink and cute make doing laundry super fun? Absolutely not. However, it sure doesn't hurt to fan open the accordion doors to be greeted with a little bit of pretty. Anything helps, right?
