Final Touches - Laundry Room

It's been a while since I've posted any post-renovation pictures, mainly due to not having the final touches done.  It's been odd to realize that getting the big items in a room were fairly simple decisions, but adding the decorations ended up taking a long time.  I knew I needed some extras for several rooms, but figuring out exactly what they were was a challenge.

For the laundry room, which is just barely a room - it's really a passage way from the garage into the house, with room for a washer, dryer, and not much else - there wasn't a lot that I could do, but I did end up with a little shelf just above the washer and dryer, and I wanted to make it pretty.  I don't have pink anywhere else in the house, so it felt like this was the right place to indulge in my pink desires, and I ended up with just enough in there to make me happy:

I was standing outside of the room to get this picture - like I said, it's tiny.  I still need something to put on the shelf above the clothes rod - I had a cute metal basket there but moved it to one of the hallway bathrooms to hold towels.  I tend to do that a lot, move things around from room to room.  And I'm kicking myself for not buying a cute soft pink metal step stool when I saw it at TJ Maxx a few months ago - but I hadn't decided if I could do pink in that room yet, so I held off and of course, it wasn't there when I went back.  I know better - the rule of shopping at TJ Maxx is buy it when you see it because it won't be there the next time you shop.  Oh well.

Shelfie.  Haha, I crack myself up.  But look - it's so pretty!  I love it.

We needed a little trash can for the dryer lint, but a traditional trash can wouldn't fit anywhere near the dryer.  I was wandering around an arts and crafts store one day when I saw the galvanized tin bucket and thought it would make a nice little trash bin, and it does.  I found the soft pink clock at Target - it's nice to have a working clock in there again as our old clock had stopped working years ago and of course I never replaced it.

There was an empty space between the trash tin and the clock for quite some time.  I kept looking at laundry room makeover pictures for inspiration, and I finally went with the extremely standard glass jar of clothespins - not that I'll ever use them - but it was cute, inexpensive, and appropriate for the room...and I like it.  I think the wood next to the tin adds some nice texture to the shelf.

I bought the two pink pots at Ikea a while back - I'm a sucker for all of the colors in this line.  The light pink pot works great to hold our laundry change, and a fake plant in the darker pot added a bit of greenery.

The left side was empty because I couldn't figure out what else to put there.  Even going with the laundry theme, it seemed silly to put a jar of powdered laundry detergent with a scoop in it on the shelf, which is in every laundry room makeover picture, because we use liquid detergent.

Even though I'd taken out all of our art to hang in other rooms and had it all leaning against the wall in the dining room, I didn't think about using the pink flowered watercolor in the laundry room until last week.  It was in a much bigger frame with a huge mat, but I saw it with a different perspective and took the frame apart.  All I needed to do was trim a little bit off the edges and it would fit into an 8x10 frame.  It's an unexpected spot for art but I see it all the time and that makes me happy.  My Grandmother painted it and I know she would have been pleased with this display.

My last pretty addition to the laundry room were pink tags to label the baskets.  When I was putting the room back together after the renovation, I organized all of the small things like light bulbs and candle holders and bandages into baskets - but we couldn't tell what was in them at a quick glance.  I kept thinking I would get some miniature chalkboard tags to use as labels, but every time I went to buy them, I wasn't that enthused, so I held off.

Once I had the pink theme firmly established, it was easy to walk down the party/gift wrap aisle at the arts and crafts store and pick up a pack of tags; I'm glad I waited on the chalkboard tags because the pink ombre tags were a cute way to bring a little cheer inside the cabinets. 

I added up everything that I spent on the laundry room decor and it came to about $35, which felt like the right amount to put into prettying up the room.  Best of all, it's my little pink oasis - and if you're wondering, the answer is yes - laundry is a much more pleasant chore now.