For the last six months, we’ve done very few home improvement projects. The constraint has been budget, mostly, but also energy. When you don’t have the money to go shopping, it’s a bit of a buzzkill to even be looking, am I right? I’ve been following all the designers (and design bloggers) on Instagram, bookmarking inspiration and a few products, but mostly I’ve been on hiatus from all things house.
Until – a few things happened recently. First, I started scheduling “creative” time in my day – a 40 minute minimum where I write, practice hand-lettering, dream up room designs, etc. Second, I came across the perfect wallpaper, and the inspiration started flowing. My creative time took a design turn, and here I am now with a laundry room inspiration board.
Side note: this wallpaper (Orange Crush) was the one that started it all. Orange groves have a special place in my heart, and I thought, we should put this in our house somewhere! But our house has its own personality, and Orange Crush in Onyx did not fit it.
Then I came across this Lulie Wallace wallpaper on Anthropologie, and it was the one. I love that Lulie Wallace prints are pretty, with spunk. The muted tones of blues and grays with pops of green better fit the aesthetic of our house, and since laundry is primarily women’s work (ha!), the laundry room was the perfect place to embrace a more feminine look.
For this room, I wanted to balance the floral print with a touch of galvanized steel, birch butcher block, clean cabinet lines, and classic marble (with a more whimsical honeycomb design). Initially, I thought that we would spend $1,000 tops on our laundry room, but then I started running the math. With the cost of materials and labor, even with DIY-ing several things, our budget now is a more realistic $3,500.
The breakdown:
- Lulie Wallace for Anthropologie wallpaper: $185, purchased
- Birch butcher block and countertop work: $250
- Marble honeycomb floor tile (and/or backsplash?): $400
- Pottery Barn galvanized laundry drying rack: $140
- Finishing touches (rolling hamper, decor): $150
- IKEA cabinets: $460
- Closet rod: $10
- Rejuvenation LED flush mount: $400
- Farmhouse door (not shown): $450, painted Oyster Bay by Sherwin Williams
MATERIALS TOTAL: $2,445
Add about another $1,000 for labor to install the tile and the wallpaper, and that brings it to about $3,500. I hope we spend less than this, of course. I almost always buy things on sale – like the wallpaper, which I purchased at about half of the regular price.
We’re going to tackle this project in bite-sized pieces along with a powder room renovation (black shiplap! brass light fixtures!) across the hall, also with a $3,500 (I hope) budget. I wish we were DIY geniuses, but the whole renovation process is so new to us (and there’s the whole full-time jobs, businesses, toddlers, baby-on-the-way thing too). For now, the plan counts for something, right?