Laundry Room Updates!

This post has been a long time coming!!!  We have finally finished the last of our laundry room updates, so I'm ready to share all the pics!!!

When we first moved into this house seven years ago, I knew that the laundry room was not ideal.  Of course I would love a large room where I could separate all the colors of clothing, have a lovely countertop to fold it all, and a long, sturdy bar to hang-dry all my.....well, pretty much everything of mine gets air dried!!! But without a big renovation, I'm stuck with this "area!" This little room gets lots of traffic, as it's the only way to get to the garage from inside the house.  This also means it's the first room we come to when we enter the house from the garage.

If you look beyond the heaping piles of clothes and clutter, you can see that it had nice cabinets above the washer and dryer.  There was also a small utility sink with storage underneath.  I added the bar for air-drying our clothes, as well as the two sets of hooks on the opposite wall.  But the room was not working for us.  WHAT A MESS!!!!!!!!

What I hated most about this laundry room:

1.  There was no place to store laundry baskets

2. That utility sink was useless (we have a large one in the basement)

3. There was no storage for backpacks, winter stuff, etc.

I reeeeeeally wanted to just install beautiful built-in lockers and move the laundry upstairs somewhere.  But that costs money.  Actually, it would probably cost a A LOT of money!  Not to mention, we'd have to give up a big section of our guest bedroom or renovate the master bathroom to get it done.

So after many months of brainstorming and planning, I came up with a fairly inexpensive solution.  And after one year of living with the new and improved set-up, I can say that I am very, very glad we did it!  It has worked great!!!!!!

First we removed that awful utility sink and cabinet. 

We removed the cabinets and relocated them to the garage. 

Then we stacked the washer and dryer by using a simple kit from Amazon.

The final step was to find a something that would hold the "stuff." We needed a place for all the laundry supplies, of course, but also: light bulbs, extension cords, backpacks, hats & gloves, the kids' socks...... I looked for weeks and weeks for the perfect piece that had a bench and hooks and cubbies. But in the end, we found this cabinet from IKEA!!!  Over one year later, I have NO complaints about it!!!!  

Here it is before we had the walls patched and painted.  We also had to get a new washer and dryer a few months ago, so you may notice that in the photos at the end.

The shelves store light bulbs, extension cords, laundry and cleaning supplies, and laundry baskets.  The kids each have a drawer for their socks and the other two drawers hold hats, gloves, scarves, etc.  The bottom cubbies are perfect for backpacks, cheer bags, basketball bags, etc.!

I found the collapsible rod on Amazon, so now I have a great place to air dry all my jeans and sweaters.  

At some point, I'd love to update the flooring, but for now, I'm just happy that the room is functional! 

Buffalo Check Christmas Coffee Bar

My little coffee bar has undergone many changes over the years.  I have it set up in my dining room--a room that would otherwise be used just a few times a year for parties and potlucks!  

This year for Christmas, I decided to go with the buffalo check plaid theme!  Most of the decor is from Big Lots or Dollar Tree or items I already had.  The "Jamie's Coffee Bar" sign was a gift from a friend (from Etsy).  

The walls will soon be painted a light gray.  The bottom wall under the chair rail used to be a dark maroon, and one day I got so sick of it, I used extra leftover paint from one of the bathrooms and just painted it!  

FALL 2019 COFFEE BAR

Painting Our Trim WHITE!!!!

Well....we finally took the plunge!!  This is a home project that I've wanted to do since we moved into our home five years ago: paint the trim white!  Our trim and doors were an awful oak orange and I knew from the second I stepped into the house that some day we would paint everything.  We decided it was such a huge job that there was no way we could sanely do it ourselves, so we hired a wonderful team of painters.  It took three whole weeks to complete the entire house -- main level and upstairs.

My favorite room and the biggest change was the family room.  I'll be adding more photos soon to zoom in on the beautiful wainscoting.  I used BEFORE pics that were taken prior to our new floors getting installed in October of 2015 so you could really see the change!

This one is right after they finished painting, prior to finishing all the decor:

The staircase was a project in itself!  I stained the railing and steps with Java Gel Stain prior to the painters arriving.  It took one painter 14 hours just to tape off the spindles!!!!!

We also got new carpet.

I had to include a picture of the hideous light fixture that used to hang in the entryway!!!  It was awful!!!

The dining room walls still need painted and we have some touch-ups left to do, but I'm so happy with the improvement!!! 

My photography is not the greatest, and I plan to use my nice camera to capture some better pics when the lighting is nicer.  I'll also add pics of the kids' bedrooms, master bedroom, and the kitchen.

:) Jamie

  

Home Office: Before & After

Woooohooo! The floors are done!  All the installing, sanding, and staining is done and our furniture is back in!! We still have some pictures to hang and other "stuff" to put back, but we're taking our time on that.  I'm not going to go into all the details of our whole floor process in this post because I think it needs a separate post of its own!!! I have several before and after pictures to share, as well as tips and advice for anyone thinking about replacing carpet with wood floors.

I've decided to start off sharing the room in our house that has had one of the biggest transformations since we moved into this home in May 2013.  It's my craft room/home office/homework room/art gallery!!!!!  I don't spend a lot of chunks of time in here, but I do come in here very frequently for craft supplies, printing, using my Cricut or laminator, etc.

BEFORE: The builtins were still the natural wood color, and there was berber carpet.

The middle pic is after we had the trim and builtins painted white and the last pic is obviously the final "AFTER" pic:

I have shared that I tend to be messy and unorganized much of the time!!!  I always feel that my life is in fast-forward mode, so I'm always moving from one project to the next, leaving messes behind!  Well, this system of using the shoeboxes to store my most frequently used supplies has been fabulous!!!!!!  It's one of the few organizing systems that has actually worked for me and the shelf always stays tidy! Yay!!!!

The art gallery wall is a work in progress. I just LOVE seeing the kids' projects and paintings and drawings and masterpieces;)  I've got a whole bin of artwork to sort through and hang up there.  (I have difficulty throwing that kinda stuff away, so it's been a challenging process deciding what to toss, store, or hang!)

There is another wall/section of this room that I didn't photograph.  It's Mya's desk and a small closet I use for my Mary Kay inventory.  It's pretty boring, but I may show some pics at some point in the near future!

:)Jamie

Buying New Furniture

(Un)Happy Tax Day, my friends!  I was an Accounting major in college and considered doing taxes for a living.....um.....well, I kinda had a change of heart along the way!!!! More about my life story later!  Today I want to share about our recent experience of buying new furniture for our family room.

Our home was built in the late 90's with lots of honey oak, berber carpet, brass fixtures, etc.  So we are slowly updating and changing (as the budget allows).  As much as I'd love to immediately start sanding and painting every inch of trim and builtins and moulding to a beautiful, fresh white....we have decided to wait.  We think it's better to have a professional do it, and it IS NOT CHEAP!!!  There are higher priority needs, which leads me to the title of this post: Buying New Furniture.

We had purchased our previous family room furniture when we got married almost 12 years ago.  It was sooooo comfortable and deep and large, just perfect for our previous home that had a big great room.  But it was stained, worn, difficult to keep clean, and pulling apart underneath the cushions.  And we were so over the swirly pattern, giant ottoman, and broken side tables!! Time for a change. Here it is, just days before the new set arrived:

SOFA & LOVESEAT:
For the sofa and loveseat, we decided on something different, something durable, a little less cushy (yet still comfy), but easier to clean.  It's the Pembroke from La-Z-Boy. Who knew La-Z-Boy made other furniture besides recliners?!!!!  The best part is the spill & scratch resistant leather-looking upholstery.  We chose the Renew fabric, which is actually fabric adhered to leather, so it has the warmth and softness of fabric, but the clean look of leather {and much cheaper than leather!!}. We also selected the brushed nickel nail heads.

CHAIR & OTTOMANS:

For the chair, we chose a fabric upholstery with a fun, more modern design to tie in with the paint and decor.  The ottomans (which convert to trays) are a nice, soft fabric, same as the pillows.

DESIGN:

Oh, and I forgot to mention that La-Z-Boy sent a designer to our house for free to help with selecting everything!!!  She created a design board for us at our final meeting, which made the whole dilemma of "choices" much easier!!! I am horrible at interior design and decor, so I have a huge appreciation for any help in this area!!!

SIDE TABLES:

These must be discontinued from La-Z-Boy (or at least their website), but here they are on Amazon.

At first, I had a little buyer's remorse because the sofa and loveseat were so very different than our previous ones.  I couldn't get over that they were not as big and cushy.  But now that I've had a chance to sit on them more, I can definitely say they are comfortable.  Almost like memory foam in that they take a few seconds to conform to your body.  And I'm LOVING that I can take a cloth to wipe them off!! (We moved the old furniture into the living room, so it's still around if I want to escape from the TV and craziness and rest for a bit!!!)

The lamps are new too. Found them online at World Market.

We tried to tie in the dark espresso colors from our kitchen cabinets into this room.  Next up will be pulling up this old berber carpet and laying down some wood floors!!!!!!!! :):):)

Note: This is not a sponsored post.  All reviews and opinions are my own based on my own experience.