Laundry Room Update: Storage Storage and MORE Storage!

A little while ago, I shared with you my newly improved pantry. Part of the reason I was able to improve it so greatly was due to some added storage. Storage. I love that word. Anyway, back to the laundry room. When we first moved in, it looked a little something like this:

But not really, because that is our stuff and we had already painted the walls. See that little wire shelf above the dryer? Yeah, that was my laundry storage, and to be honest, I didn't even think it was that bad. That is, until I wanted to redo the pantry and I realized a good 25%+ of my pantry was being used by cleaning supplies. Pantry =/= Cleaning. At least not to the amount I had in there. This was definitely one of those things that we kept thinking "Why didn't we do this sooner?"

We bought stock white cabinets from Home Depot, one single door and two double door.

(thank goodness for my cell phone. this was the only way i could get a semi-decent shot of the front)

We also looked for a laundry tub solution, but were not interested in spending $200+ for something we didn't love. And it's a laundry tub for crying out loud. And after a quick search on Pinterest, I promptly exited that window. Apparently some people just want a regular sink with a pretty faucet. Yeah, no. We DIY. We need a large ugly tub that functions when we are working on a project. Not another bathroom vanity. So DIY we did. Carl and his Dad worked on it, and oddly, luckily, his Dad had a lone cabinet door that would match. Between some melamine and that random cabinet door, they came up with this.


I still want to change out the floors eventually, and possibly repaint. Don't tell Carl. We'll also come up with some sort of countertop solution for above the washer and dryer so I can 1. stop losing things behind it and 2. use that space for a drink area when we have large parties. And then of course I'd like to make it pretty, so perhaps I'll venture back to Pinterest and just ignore the sinks.

Then lastly, I didn't show you this in the pantry reveal, but it is in the pantry. I needed a space to hang clothes to dry, and the regular hanging part of the pantry wasn't very functional. The wet vac and vacuum would get in the way. The solution was a hanging rack mounted above the door. Always using that vertical space I tell ya! The clothes hang up high enough so they aren't in the way, but I can also just use hangers for a quick item here and there.

Alright, that's enough for today. I'll be back later to show you how I organized the interiors of the cabinets, but this room is a pain to photograph so I'm taking a break!

Family Room Flip

We flipped the family room. Literally. What was on the left is now on the right. What was on the right is not on the left. See for yourself :)



This also gives you the overall view of the family room with the updated fireplace decor. And yes, I'm still loving it, in case you were wondering. :)



We swapped the coffee table with the ottoman from the living room. There might be more furniture swapping down the road, but for now I'm liking this change. You can also see that I didn't trash the round mirror that used to be over the fireplace. He just got a new home. :)



There were a couple reasons for the change.
1. I get tired of the same ol same ol.
2. I wanted to come up with a plan for Christmas

Here is the set up from Christmas last year.


But I didn't like how the tree wasn't a focal point. New plan:



With this plan, we can just remove the one side table, and there is plenty of room for our slim tree to fit between the couch and fireplace. Our big tree will still go in the living room.

Pros to the new layout:
1. Better TV viewing, since the main part of the couch isn't in a direct line with the TV.
2. The room just feels more cozy.
3. The ottoman is a safer piece of furniture than the coffee table for our not-so-stable baby.
4. As stated above, the Christmas Tree can now be a focal point

I'm not 100% sold on leaving it this way year round, but we're enjoying it for now, and will continue to do so at least until Christmas. Do you get the itch to move furniture around too? I know I'm not the only one!

Home Office Redo: Before & After

I have to say, I like our house, I really do. However, once we updated the family room in April, the only room that was an eyesore on the main level was our office. I work from home occasionally, but rarely ever sat in the office. Carl would work from home when he wasn't traveling, and would complain about the office on a regular basis. Can you really blame either of us for feeling the way we felt?



If you were working with this, you'd probably be thinking the same thing. Our college solution desks weren't really cutting our grown up working lifestyle. The problem was, it wasn't a priority. Carl would disagree, but still realized we had other things that needed to be done first. With Zombie Baby almost here, we decided it was now or not for a reeeeally long time. Oh and the fact that Carl was pulled off the road and working solely from home (yippee!!!!) might have had something to do with the pressure as well.

Our first step was to decide on all the things we wanted...in an ideal world since the space is small.

• Two workstations- room for two chairs
• Lots of lighting (there is one window, but once the sun goes down it's super dark)
• Big enough work station for Command Central, otherwise known as Carl's THREE monitors
• Shelving for our books and magazines
• Lots of storage- including a place for the printer
  
• Some filing solution for the few files we need to keep readily available
• Doors to help cut down the noise both going in and out
  
• Nothing too costly. There is still a baby on the way.

Now that we have a list, let's take a quick trip back in time to the start of the office. It used to look like this.
Ahhh! That's a lot of wallpaper. But I remedied that. We removed the carpet, painted and installed new hardwood flooring.

Sigh. That's better. Then Carl cased every.single.window in the house, including the office of course.
Tee Daaaa!

And then we just put back in our old crappy furniture, and that's how we lived for 2+ years. Eek. Finally, this past Fall, we purchased a set of French Doors from Home Depot. Carl primed and painted those bad boys and installed them, which actually was a lot more work than I anticipated it being. All the trim had to come down and be redone, and the doorway had to be adjusted. Luckily, my man is handy. I don't even want to think about what the project would have cost if we had hired someone.

Trim removed and doorway getting prepped:

Unprimed and painted:

Starting to be primed:

Primed, painted, hung and hardware:
Once we had a little noise help, thank you doors, it was time to work on the furnishings. We debated on a single piece unit, but like I said the space is small. And the options out there weren't really working the way we wanted. Plus, the options that were sort of working were out of the budget! Plan B: Put something together from Ikea. 3 Trips to the store, countless measurements and about 4,592 Brain Powerables later, we drove home like this:


Thank goodness we live close to Ikea, because 1. I was terrified to drive home like this and 2. we still had to make 2 more trips after this to exchange and buy more things! And yes, that is the bottom of a cinnamon roll pan. Don't judge. They are delicious.

This office was not done without compromise either. First we'll take a look at our wants list and then we'll get to the lovely photos.

• Two workstations- room for two chairs
• Lots of lighting (there is one window, but once the sun goes down it's super dark)
  
• Big enough work station for Command Central, otherwise known as Carl's THREE monitors
• Shelving for our books and magazines
• Lots of storage- including a place for the printer
  
• Some filing solution for the few files we need to keep readily available
• Doors to help cut down the noise both going in and out
  
• Nothing too costly. There is still a baby on the way.

Ok, so we didn't have to compromise on much, but losing an entire workstation hurt. We realized that the space really wasn't large enough to accommodate them, BUT, we were ok with it for a few reasons.

1. We realized we would rarely ever be in there at the same time
2. So long as we could fit another chair in the room somehow (I do most of my work on a laptop so we focused on a solution for that rather than another working desk)

And here it is. There is a good chance we'll do some type of shelving over the desk down the road, but for now, we have plenty of storage and really don't need them. Since we don't have an overhead light in this room, we just laid some rectangle lights on their sides on top of the standing bookcases which gives great overall light. Then, we just bought two task lamps for either side of the desk as well.


The solution for me not having a workspace was a super comfy chair and ottoman. I have a feeling it will get a LOT of use. I sit in there so long as we don't have conflicting conference calls and it works quite nicely. I'm actually sitting in it as I type :) The lamp (repurposed from our guest room) over there makes this the perfect reading chair too! The shelving, placed on it's side, was the perfect spot for our printer.


Command Central in all it's glory. I tried really hard to get him to minimize his screens, but he really does use all three, so I had to let it go.

Lastly, cord management was another high priority for Carl. Those hanging trays are actually for a different desk system at Ikea, but with a little cutting, they worked just fine for our space and no more cords! And that little filing cabinet is on wheels, so it can easily be moved out of the way. We put our large filing cabinet in the basement with the files we don't need regularly. Everything that is used on a monthly basis fits nicely in that one drawer now.

I don't have a complete breakdown, but when it was all said and done, we redid the entire office for less than $2000. That included the floors, paint, trim, doors, furniture and accessories. It was definitely worth every penny spent. We are really enjoying the new workspace and are kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner! Feel free to ask any questions, my fingers are just too tired to type any more details :)

The Nursery: Stage 2

Well, I was hoping we would get our rocker in sooner than the estimated time they gave us, but alas, no luck. So, I am going to share Stage 2 of the nursery and then once it's reeeeeeally done, I'll share the absolute final photos.

If you want to see Stage 1, go here first, but this was what it looked like before we bought the house.
Picking up where we left off, Carl finished the built in bookcase that he and his dad had started. It turned out even better than I could have hoped.

Then, all the manly time and attention went to the crib. I think there were times where they were really regretting taking on the project, but in the end, it was 100% worth it. Since I'm really not up on the woodworking verbiage, I'll let the photos tell the story.



Once the crib was done, we debated for quite some time about the dresser. My due date was fast approaching, Carl was getting swamped at work and the holidays were staring us in the face. We made the decision to just purchase a dresser rather than build one. We went with the popular Ikea Hemnes dresser which was especially good for us, because our guest room furniture is already part of that line. It'll make it easier to move furniture around in the future as necessary.

Then it was just a matter of final details. Carl installed a Rubbermaid Closet Organizer and a white room darkening cordless, wandless window shade. I wanted to keep things clean and simple, so no frills went into that area.

Once that was done, it was time for my vision to come into play. I had pictured greens and blues, but not really pastel. I was thinking more along the lines of aquas and teals. We centered the room around bedding from Land of Nod. The colors were exactly what I had in mind. From there everything just sort of fell into place. I spotted a lamp at Home Goods, chose the light green rug from Pottery Barn and had some prints created from an Etsy Seller. The only missing piece is a newborn photo which will be placed in the center frame above the crib. Well that and the rocker that we ordered when I was 28 Weeks pregnant...and the build time is 12 weeks, oops. Once that arrives, we'll be in really good shape, it's just a race to see which gets here first, baby or rocker :).

But enough chitter chatter, it's time for the good stuff.

First, the two pieces that took the most of Carl's blood sweat and tears. The finished bookcase, which is just begging for more books. I promise, we're working on our collection:


And the second time consumer, the finished crib, and a close up of the bedding. The two bottom drawers pull out to store extra bedding.

Now for the overviews. View of the room from the door:

View of the room from the corner by the crib:

View of the room in the corner by the closet:

View from the corner where the rocker will sit. That mirror used to be black and hang in our foyer, but was really too small for the space. It was repurposed by spray painting it white and fits nicely in the nursery.


And lastly, for now, the closet. This baby has more storage than his parents, and really more than we know what to do with right now, but I'm certain it will be filled in no time!
Up close:
We had so much fun putting together this room. Each step was carefully thought out, and this was probably the most work we've put into any room in the house. I told Carl we are going to have to stay here until we have all our babies, because I'm fairly certain I won't get this nice of a nursery if we move to a new house :) I'm so impressed with his work, he continues to amaze me day after day! Hope you enjoyed the big reveal.