Plans to update an old hunter green laundry room into a traditional yet modern green space with beadboard and a beautiful checkerboard floor!
It's been almost two and a half years since we moved into our 25-year-old home. While we've accomplished quite a bit, the laundry room is the one room that hasn't changed at all! I've painted almost every other room on the main floor, but this is the one room that still has the original yellow walls.
It still has the original wall color, plus the original hunter green tile and hunter green countertops.
But those are all cosmetic things that aren't too hard to change! Yay!!
Or at least cover them up in a phase 1 makeover.
What I Love About This Laundry Room
I never want to sound ungrateful for my home just because I'm changing the cosmetics. So when we were buying our home, I was looking for a few things:
- Natural light
- Large enough to fold laundry, with space for a drying rack and room to set up an ironing board without feeling cramped.
- A sink
- And NOT a pass-through laundry room
This laundry room checked off all of my boxes, and I LOVE that it's neither too big nor too small. The natural light is great for treating stains, since you can actually see them. After our old pass-through laundry room with no natural light, I'm so grateful for this dedicated workspace!
It also has plenty of storage, with cabinets above the washer and dryer. They hold all kinds of household items, like light bulbs, pantry backstock, and cleaning supplies. One side holds a lot of the girls' arts and crafts supplies. It really is a wonderful workhorse in our home.
And now it's time to make it pretty!
Laundry Room Design Plan
Back in the fall, I hired an interior designer, Sydney Collins, to help complete a design concept for the connecting dining room, butler's pantry, and laundry room. I wanted the rooms to flow together, since you can see all three from the kitchen, and they need to "speak" to each other.
The dining room is almost finished (woohoo!), so it's time to start on the other two rooms.
I'm lumping the butler's pantry design in with the laundry room mood board, because it's so small that it didn't feel like it needed its own design board.
So, without further ado, here's the design board for the laundry room and butler's pantry.
It's classic, subtle, and colorful, and it's going to be so, so good! Let's talk about some of the changes I'll be making.
Laundry Room Makeover To-Dos
Many of these updates will be DIY projects. I'm not ripping anything out or gutting a single thing (except the sink faucet). I'd like to do a full gut at some point, but not today. I'm basically putting lipstick on everything, and it'll be transformational!
- Paint the countertops with countertop paint. Probably in a marble-looking finish.
- Replace the builder-basic faucet and sprayer with something a little prettier. I'm going with a stainless steel faucet, because the sink is stainless and I'm not changing it now.
- Replace the boob light with a gorgeous flush mount light. This light is a splurge, but I'm all about saving up for good lighting these days!
- Add a pretty pattern with window treatments in this damask fabric. I ended up using this fabric to make a DIY cornice board for the window, and I love how much pattern it adds to the room.
- Add beadboard to the walls three-quarters of the way up. Paint it either Simply White or Comfort Gray.
- Paint the walls the opposite of the beadboard. (I still need to decide which element will be which color.)
- Add checkerboard "marble" flooring over the existing tile floor. (I've been hunting for a DIY flooring option that looks like black and white marble tiles. So when Chris Loves Julia released floor tiles with Wall Pops this week, I set my alarm and ordered them! They're out of stock, but more inventory is coming in August, I believe.)
- Replace the hardware. And maybe add some hooks for mops & brooms.
I'd love to replace my washer and dryer while I'm at it, since they're 10 years old and not the best, but we'll see if that makes the budget cut!
Butler's Pantry Makeover To-Dos
I'll tackle the butler's pantry either after the laundry room or at the same time. We'll see how it goes!
- Replace the countertop with real marble.
- Paint the cabinets in Little Falls (BM).
- Install this gorgeous geometric wallpaper with pops of metallic gold!
I think that covers it! It'll take me a few months to save the budget for everything and finish all of the DIY projects, but the laundry room flooring is on its way! I'll probably tackle the countertops first, then the floors.
I can't wait to share the progress along the way and try some new DIY projects in the process.
Sources for the Laundry Room & Butler's Pantry Makeover
Tap an image below to shop some of the sources I'll be using.
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!!
xo, Laura
