Wash Day Blues

I've mentioned before how in our old house we had a nice sized mudroom and how in this house we have no mudroom and no real laundry room, it's more of a laundry closet.  It's not a huge deal, except that I've always wanted a big open laundry area with a window and plenty of open shelves to store things on.  My parents had a laundry room like that, it had a door that led outside and a window right above the washing machine which made the room nice and bright and sort of made the chore of doing laundry almost enjoyable!

Well here comes the ugly truth about my laundry area.  It had gone from bad to worse in the last 2 years, with junk piled everywhere.  Dog toys, batteries, light bulbs, and enough extension cords to run a line from our house to Timbuktu!  I was so tired of running like a mad woman to close the bi-fold doors anytime the doorbell rang so that no one could see the disaster that lurked behind those doors, so last weekend was clean up day!

Before

Even the camera didn't want to focus on this huge mess!  Don't you love the laundry basket filled with dog toys, flashlights, and pretty much everything EXCEPT laundry?!

And see what I mean about not having much space?!  And how inefficiently we were using the space we did have?!  So I approached Mr. Tide and told him about my wonderful idea to transform the laundry area.  I wanted lots more shelving, maybe some cubbies, I wanted it to have shelving on the sides and the back.  He was totally on board with my great plan...ok that's a lie, but he did agree to help build whatever I designed.

So off we went to Lowes, Michaels, Target and anywhere else I could think of and guess what?  There were no ready made shelves in the right lengths, no pre-built cubbies, no wonderful hooks...nada, zip, zero!  So Mr. Tide being the wonderful hubby that he is, said that he would build me something and we could just paint it and install our own shelving, hooks, etc.  But I had already torn the place apart, stuff was sitting everywhere in our hallway and I had a busy week planned plus company coming this weekend!!  No no no, building, painting, and then installing was not in my plans!  Installation of ready made stuff would have been hectic enough, I did not need more work on my plate this week, so on to plan B!

Instead of reworking my entire laundry closet, I decided that I could make do with what shelving we already had if I could only find a way to contain the clutter!  Michaels and Lowes to the rescue with their cute little baskets and folding box thingies!  Needless to say Mr. Tide was lovin' this idea, it meant little or no work on his part, so it was the kind of project he loves!

These cute little containers now hold, and more importantly hide, all of the batteries, light bulbs, cleaners, and general junk we have in there. 

And they are so easy to grab and pull down to get whatever you need from them.  Maybe now we won't have a million batteries and bulbs that we can't find so we end up buying more at the store!!

And me being...well me...I had to pretty it up.  So I took some old valances that I had, wrinkles and all, and strung them up with some ribbon to help gussie up the place! 

And I found these cute little Martha Stewart tags on clearance at Michaels (the baskets and ribbon were on sale too!) and used my rudimentary art skills to label each container!

I even bought a basket to tuck the ginormous Tide box into so that it looks neat and pretty!

After

So there you have it!  My super cute new laundry closet!  It still isn't big enough or bright enough, but at least now it's pretty enough!  And my 17 year old son, who does do laundry every now and then, informed me that it's now super feminine and that I killed any possibility of him ever doing laundry again!  Oh well, you can't win 'em all!

Visit Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday!

It's time for Transformation Thursday over at The Shabby Chic Cottage.

Visit My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.

And visit The Inspired Room for Inspired by Friday.