Laundry from 1986

For a few years now, I've been doing laundry from 1986.

That's when our house was built and that's what year our laundry room still looked like.

I know it's just a laundry room and probably not that noteworthy, but I am in there a lot. 

A whole lot.

After the babies were born and I went through my "postpartum nesting" phase, the laundry room had to change. I really didn't want to spend much money on it. It is just a laundry room, so I tried to think creatively about how to brighten and improve the space.

We were having the exterior trim of the house painted, so while the painter was here I figured I could get him to take down the glorious iridescent wallpaper and repair the hole in the sheetrock a plumber left us a year or so ago. I had a gallon of leftover paint from our bathroom and I had our painter mix a little white into it to lighten it up and create the color for the walls.  We were also having new carpet put into our master bedroom (another postpartum thing that was driving me crazy) so I found an inexpensive linoleum remnant to have installed as well. I  had a shelf installed from wall to wall above the dryer (a simple wood board painted white) and added a few fun baskets for cleaning rags and buttons/safety pins, as well as some artwork. Viola! My laundry mood is much improved.

Here's the before:

Not a huge laundry room, but functional. I'm actually glad it's not a huge room. That forces me to deal with the laundry instead of letting it pile up.

 The wallpaper: blue and purple iridescent design. It shimmered in the light. seriously

 the floor: really stained and old linoleum

 Here's the after:
Much brighter and fresher!

It's nothing overly fancy, but I enjoy it so much more. I am in there multiple times per day, so I wanted to enjoy my time there.

And what is the laundry strategy when you have five small children? You do laundry pretty much every time you walk by the laundry room. Put the next load in the washer or the dryer, fold something, take something to be put away. On average I do 2  loads of laundry a day, and once or twice a week I may have a focused laundry day of 4-5 loads and I make sure I get everything folded and put away.

It's a never-ending job for sure. But I am thankful that we have clothes to wear and people to wear them. (And I'm thankful that the ugly wallpaper is gone. Seriously....it doesn't matter what year it was. That was never attractive.)