laundry room redo....

(scroll down to see 14 days of valentine)
i started with a dark laundry room.

 it worked at the time because the rest of the house was painted in similar tones

 

i knew i wanted something lighter and brighter.
i didn't get a picture of the light fixture but can you say "builder's grade crap???" that, paired with the dark paint on the walls really made it depressing to do laundry.
and i like to do laundry.

sooooo, i knew needed to do this on the cheap or hubby was going to have a cow...

i had a gallon of oops paint ($5.00, yup, five dollars) that was a very light cream.  i knew i wanted a nice aqua/turquoise theme.

since home depot does not re-tint oops paint, i had to get creative.  i bought a tester paint in the darkest turquoise i could have tinted and mixed it myself.  it was a really green turquoise so i added some dark blue craft paint that i already had in the house, mixed it in and got the tone i wanted but it was still too dark.  so i foraged around in the basement and i found a can of white paint
and added some of that to lighten and brighten it up. 

it took a lot of mixing and trying out on the wall, but i finally had the right recipe for the paint.

 i had don move a light fixture from another room to the laundry,

 isn't she pretty?  much brighter than the old builders grade crap.  

 i took some pictures of the blue mason jars that i love, printed them off and made some artwork for the room. 

 i framed them in a frame that i painted a while back but never used...

 i added a shelf that i had in the basement (free, score!) to hold some pretty accessories. 

 i decided to add a board and batten ($20.00 for the wood) effect to the garage wall so i could hang hooks for keys, bags and purses.  i followed kate's instructions here at censational girl and couldn't believe how easy it really was. masking tape helped hold the boards in place while i measured the spacing of the boards. 

i found hooks at hobby lobby and spray painted them with an oil rubbed bronze finish for some contrast. 

 there is a bulletin board on the opposite wall. i'm not sure what i'm going to do with that yet, the wall just needed something...

sigh, i love it....

nice and fresh and clean....

and it makes doing laundry so much nicer.

i added the faux roman shade that i made....

i really love how it turned out,

but the reality of the room is that it is a pass through from the garage into the house to the kitchen.  it is a very small room, about 8' x 6' so there isn't really room to have a proper mud room. 

 it has to serve duty as a coat closet,   

a place for a laundry hamper

a home for my purse and keys and shoe/boot storage...
and because we enter from the garage, i really can't put a pretty/light colored rug in here, so the old one will have to stay.

so my pretty room has to do triple duty.

but it is so much better to be in than it was before.

edited to add: the tutorial for the faux fixed roman shade from kate at centsational girl is 
here.

instead of attaching the non-working shade directly to the wall as she did, i screwed tiny i-screws into the top and hung the shade from cup hooks screwed into the ceiling.
the light fixture from lowes
here 
was spray painted with heirloom white paint.  the glass bowl of the fixture was an icky yellow color. while i was washing the bowl,  i noticed that the yellow was peeling off.  i used a steel wool pad to remove the yellow coloring which just seemed to be some kind of coating. 
unfortunately, i was like a mad scientist in the lab with how i mixed up the paint using what i had on hand, and i will go to home depot in the next few days to see if i can color match with what they have.  

****2/17/11****
okay, so here is the scoop on the paint color......i went to home depot and had them color match the paint splashed paper covering of the paint can with their computer.  this is what the computer printed out...

 i then went over to the paint cards and this is the closest that i could com to the color.  the raggedy little piece of paper is the actual paint from the paint can label.  because i used behr paint, the computer sticker is just based on behr paint.  
the paint guy told me that the formula would be different for different brands of paint.  


if anyone is interested, i can go back and have them color match with the computer for the martha stewart or glidden paint as well.  

the americana craft pain in spa blue (DA277) was a pretty close match too, however, when i looked it up on the website, the color was nowhere near what it looked like in real life.  i got the americana craft paint at hobby lobby. 


*****roman shade fabric update*****
i went back to jo-ann fabrics to see if i could find out any information regarding the fabric.  
unfortunately, there was no identifying information on the fabric itself.  
the cardboard that the fabric was wrapped in stated that it was 
vff outdoor fabric with a sku # of 961-7317.  it was $6.00 a yard but this was a clearance price.
****sorry, there was no other information****


total cost of the redo?
less than $50.00, and that includes paint, wood for the board and batten, fabric for the roman shade and hooks for the wall.  everything else was repurposed, material on hand and decor that i shopped for in other rooms in the house.
and
i did it all myself (other than don helping with the nail gun, which i'm ashamed to say, scared the crap out of me) and helping hold the shelf while i screwed the brackets into place.
i think i did alright.....

linking up at thrifty decor chick