To say the past year has been a whirlwind would be an understatement. From Covid craziness, to a lengthy adoption process that’s still ongoing, another surgery, and all of the regular life in between we’ve been quite busy. And just for fun, throughout all of that, we decided to refinance and do a fun remodel to our downstairs that we’ve dreamt of since moving into this home almost 10 years ago. We tackled the entire downstairs flooring, kitchen facelift, the kids bathroom and a few other small projects. It’s all too much for just one blog post so I thought I’d start with my favorite of all of the rooms, my laundry room!!!

Let’s be honest people. A GOOD MAJORITY of our lives, as mothers is spent doing laundry. There are days where I wonder if somehow we picked up a couple of stray humans because no way do we have this much laundry piled up when (I swear) I just had it all cleaned a few days ago. I truly believe my children play a game where they throw clean clothes in their baskets just to see if I’ll notice if they’ve actually been worn or not. But alas, I love these crazy humans and I don’t want to ever bear the smelly kid in class, so I humor them and clean their clothes. But that’s where it ends. I don’t iron them. Honestly, 90% of the time they are the “before picture” in ad advertisement for anti-wrinkle bounce sheets (that I own and always forget to use), or one of those hand held steamers (how cool do they look). And I’m A-OK with that life choice, because I have bigger fish to fry then de-wrinkling their clothes that have sat in the dryer for 4 days. So when I had a chance to make this space that I spend so much of my time in bigger and better my 30-something adult heart exploded.

As you can see, the previous owners (who built this home) weren’t big on storage. They must have been minimalists who were able to put all of their belongings in this tiny two door cabinet system. But not this hoarder. Baskets, baskets galore is how I kept things in this room. I knew when we redid this room I wanted floor to ceiling storage. And how about that serene blue paint color I chose? You’ve seen my house before, you know my teal obsesion. I feel like if I can use as much calming hues of the ocean I’ll trick my brain into thinking I’m at a beach house and just haven’t had time to take that sunset stroll in a while. But ya’ll know me, and sister loves color so even though I knew I was canning the ocean blue, this room wasn’t getting away with boring white all over.

I know, I know, more blue. I love blue, get over it. And I already have navy woven in other spaces in the house so this was just another space I could bring that in. I’ve wanted to bring in gold accents into the house but Nick REALLY doesn’t like gold fixtures. So this was my place to pull rank and say, this is a room almost I see exclusively so let me have this one. Also, I made sure to choose a light fixture that wouldn’t break the bank ($80 from Target online), and I kept the gold in places that could easily be swapped out, keeping the sink faucet timeless and nickel. The mixing of the metals in the room actually works. The hooks for the backpack are from Hobby Lobby, so I waited until they were half off and paid $5 a piece for them. The acrylic gold handles are from Overstock and I think I paid about $35 total for all of them. The rod to hang clothes is actually a tension rod from Amazon and could be easily changed if/when I ever decide I’m done with gold.

The other thing I’ve always wanted was a sink. As you can see, the other area of storage that existed before was a make shift shelving that I used, again, baskets, to fill with all kinds of essentials. But I’m that mom who washes shoes by hand, dogs in the sink, outdoor items, and all kinds of other gross items. I always hated using the same sink that I wash my dishes in, to get dog poop off of my kids shoes. I really wanted a designated utility sink that was reserved for bleach, heavy duty cleaning and hopefully deep enough that my little mutts could get a good bath in as well.

Look at her. In all of her glory. A pretty, industrial sink. That I will now clean animal and human grossness in. And love every minute of it.

I doubled my storage, still had space for baskets, and created a custom mud room space that still has drawers for all of the shoes, but looks more upscale and custom now. Mom tip - I actually keep all of the kids school socks in one of the drawers so when they are headed out the door they can grab them at the same time as their shoes, in the drawer next to them. We also have a shoe shelf in the garage for the dirty cleats, mud boots and other slip ons that create more of a mess.

Another BIG item on the wish list for me was usable counters. A place I could fold clothes on as they came out of the dryer - to you know, try and contain that wrinkle family issue. I always have a basket on top of the counter that I call “important wash items.” When the kids get home from sports games, their uniforms go in there and not their rooms. My husband knows if there are a pair of jeans, or shirt he wants cleaned quickly, it goes to that basket. When that basket is full it gets washed no matter where I’m at in my laundry cycle. It’s like the VIP section of wash. I always make sure a solid amount of underwear get thrown in there, because, let’s face it, those are the items that we need fully stocked the most of. And the tile backsplash was just for added prettiness and hopefully resale value one day.

Okay enough jibber jabbering. I’ll just let you look at the gallery of the rest of the few pictures, because let’s be honest ya’ll are here for the pretty pictures, not my musings on life ;) and mom hacks.