Our Laundry Room Mini-Make Over...On A Budget

This is our laundry room before this week…very practical and functional but in need of some TLC.

I don’t know about you, but I love looking at before and after shots of people, homes and everything in between. In my heart I believe that’s because they encourage hope, resilience and encourage all of us to keep working towards our goals. However, if I’m being honest, sometimes the images can be a little discouraging too. Especially when it comes to seeing home interior before and after images. Why is this? For me, I think it’s because I live in the real world with a limited budget. I don’t have thousands of dollars to make changes to my house every month and corporate sponsors aren’t sending me free items to help me with my home renovations which makes me exactly like 99 percent of people in the world!

All that being said, if you follow The Morrow House on social media, you may or may not have noticed that there has never been one picture of our laundry room…and there is a good reason for that! It wasn’t beautiful, in fact it wasn’t even cute, however it was functional. The appearance of this room bothered me because as you know our home is a vacation rental and is often photographed. As a result, I have always wished I could make the laundry room look better than its current state.

So, I saved, and guess what? It took time. Any of you who have begun saving for a project know that things come up that take money away from your goal! The basement needed work, not fun, but necessary. Trees needed trimming, not pretty but required.

Here is our laundry room pick me up! I’m quite thrilled with the progress so far.

Slowly, but surely, I put money aside to buy a new dryer that matched our washing machine which after all is the most important function of the laundry room. Why Speed Queen? It’s a simple brand, no extra features that can break, and its a commercial grade machine that works well for the enormous amount of laundry we do. I’ve used our Speed Queen washing machine for almost two years and it has served us well.

The room is a blend of old and new. The old medical table was something that we wanted to keep since we use it to fold linens each week. It is a nice vintage piece, which I think is important in any room, that I bought over a year ago at the La Salle Shoppes in Waco for a great price.

Next, I knew I needed something on the big blank wall…I had lots of ideas…but limited budget so Instead of buying a beautiful Pottery Barn shelf that I loved, I decided to ask my dad if he could make me a very inexpensive shelf from supplies found at Lowes and he did!

Then, instead of buying the gorgeous floral wall mural I wanted, I used the floral artwork that was in our basement that used to hang in the dining room. After the shelf and artwork was hung, I headed to Target and bought three reasonably priced baskets to store my laundry supplies in which are working quite well. Then, I sifted through the various jars and vases I have around the house and filled one with some cotton stems that were previously used in the dining room. The final beautiful, and somewhat indulgent touch, is the beautiful antique Chinese Washboards I got from Susie Robb @fromsusie. They were the prettiest touch to finish out our laundry room mini make over.

Here’s what I love…Is this the most beautiful laundry room on Instagram? Unequivocally, NO, not even close. There are a hundred other things I could do to make it more impressive. I could have wasted another huge chunk of money to buy a new washing machine just to make sure the control panels matched, but there was no reason. The washer works perfectly but unfortunately the newer model wasn’t available in the silver. I could have spent on a rug, more artwork for the other wall and on and on, but then I would not have felt as good about it when it was done. I know this about myself. I feel guilty when I go too far and if I don’t stick to the budget on things like this. That’s a lesson I have learned the hard way, trust me!

This is our floor to ceiling wall of shelving…we store sheets, towels, toiletries, rugs and many other household items here.

I am pleased with the improvements we’ve made, but I absolutely love that there is not one penny of debt in this laundry room. As time goes on we may add to it, but only if it makes sense. I am encouraged that I had the self restraint to keep it practical while making it prettier. Most times in life, that’s the perfect formula for me.