My laundry room was destroyed and made over … again

I am apparently a glutton for punishment because I decided to join an online spring cleaning challenge this week. And in addition to being a glutton, I’m apparently also a sucker because I picked my laundry room as the space I was going to tackle.

If you’ve been following LROL for awhile, you may remember our big plans for the laundry room. In our quest for a more organized house, we will be busting out the back wall and expanding the space (there’s currently a garage closet on the other side). I’m excited about this renovation project because it will eventually mean a designated sewing/craft/blogging/command central room just for me. Yay! But I’m also realistic. As I look around at all the projects that need to get done around here before we can go to work on the laundry room, I’m thinking it will be a few months until we can get started on that space. In the meantime, this is what the room looked like before the spring cleaning challenge: (Warning: The following photos are not intended for viewing by “cleanies.”)

Needless to say, it was time to do some serious cleaning and organizing. I wanted to style the room so I could at least keep the door open when company is at our house. But I also faced the challenge of how to decorate it because I couldn’t spend any money, since it is getting a complete overhaul in the future. So I “shopped the house” for decorating ideas that would make the space more functional and pretty for now. Here’s how it ended up:

The room was in such sad shape, I actually had to patch and touch up the walls and trim in addition to giving the entire room a good scrub.

I switched out the former set of coat hooks for a beefier one that holds more. Plus I cleaned and packed away all the winter coats that were clogging up the room. Now I have open hooks where we can hang our library book tote bag and Tiny’s school backpack.

I grabbed some artwork from around the house. The “P” came from the dining room, the beach prints were already in the laundry room, and the butterflies were collecting dust in the basement. Note: These butterfly collections are the real deal! As a hobby, my aunt and uncle travel around the world catching and documenting butterflies and moths. They often give away some of their work at our annual family reunions. That’s where we were able to score the two pieces above.

I threw together a few more decorations for the top of the cabinet.

This basket from Target is one of my favorite storage pieces. I would honestly love to have about five more of these in my home. This one always gets put to good use. The rug was originally in the garage. I purchased it about a year ago from my all-time-favorite discount store: Gabriel Brothers.

I brought out this handmade wooden bowl to keep my laundry detergent pods handy near the washing machine. The Target basket and the handmade bowl are both easy and practical home organizing ideas that have simplified my laundry routine immensely.

So there you have it. I kicked off my spring cleaning with one of the scariest rooms in our house.

Look out, garage, I’m coming for you!

Have you started your spring cleaning yet? What is the biggest challenge you face this year?

I’m linking this up to House of Rose.