A can of spray paint walks into a bar...

Spray is the golden child of the home decor blogging world. You see it everywhere, on everything, in ever color, for any purpose.I really try not to go nuts with the spray paint. I have spray painted a lamp for Elizabeth's room and that's pretty much it. I have a few more small spray paint projects in the works but I still kind of prefer traditional paint brushes. Weird, I know.

Admittedly, it has its purpose. I bought this painting at REfind probably close to a year ago.

When I go there, I have a method. I walk around the whole store and take in everything that Carey is doing - seasonal stuff, new furniture, etc. Then I go back to the stuff that caught my eye initially. I came back to this painting about 4 times before I finally picked it up. It was about $25 if I recall but I just liked it. Of course I adore yellow and my house is filled with blue and green so I knew I could find a place for it. I originally pegged it for the basement guest room but it never really worked in there.

Then I started working on the laundry room and decided to give it a go in there. I decided that the frame was not working at all and it needed to be changed. I opted for the old spray paint.

So much more modern and updated and really cheerful for the laundry room.

I know you probably think it's ugly but I do really like it. Tell me what you think...really.

What are you spray painting this week?

Laundry Room: Easy Fake Roman Shade

Happy Blogiversary to HOUSEography! Hard to believe that I first posted one year ago today. Thanks to everyone who follows and reads this blog regularly.

Yesterday I posted about my spiffed up laundry room. I think the critical change in there was this easy fake Roman shade. Clearly I don't need privacy in the laundry room so it never needs to be raised and lowered. I wanted the casual look of a shade instead of a more formal valance, so this is what I came up with totally on the fly with stuff I had around the house.

I purchased this fabric about a month ago at JoAnn fabrics. It was the end of the bolt and less than 2 yards so I am pretty sure I paid about $8 for it. I thought I had some white lining fabric at home but turns out I didn't, so I improvised and just folded the fabric in half and cut it. This made 2 pieces which were each an inch or two wider than the window. Then I flipped the top over so the wrong sides were out. I then sewed three sides as if I were making a pillow, then I turned so the right sides were out, and sewed the fourth side across. Easy peasy.

Now for the Roman shade part. Start by laying the fabric flat with the best side down (both sides were pretty much the same on mine but if you use white lining, put the good fabric side down), and then fold up to mimic a Roman shade. I didn't measure but you could if you are picky like that.

Next take a few stitches on each fold on both sides to mimic where the chord would be threaded through. Don't go through the top layer of fabric, only the fold and the lining - all still with the good side of the fabric down on the table. It takes probably 10-15 stitches on each side for each fold.

Then I needed a way to hang it. I remembered how my mom made the valance in my son's nursery by tacking it onto a piece of wood that is mounted above the window. I decided to take the same approach with this one. Handy Hubby pounded together a piece of wood which was about 2 inches wider than the window casing. You can see the shape in the picture below.

 I stapled the edge with the visible seam onto the top of the board.

Next I lured Handy Hubby away from the Bruins game to screw the piece of wood to the wall with 2 long drywall screws. (yes, his shirt has rules of beer drinking on it - let's just say it's a REALLY old shirt)

And here's the final result after about one and a half hours of work.

There's just something about a good window treatment to make a room feel "finished". Even if it's a laundry room. Love it.
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Putting some spin on the laundry room

A laundry room on the bedroom level was on the top 3 things that I wanted out of this renovation (along with a master bathroom and BIG closet). It took me about 20 seconds to snag a color for the walls since I figured we could repaint if it was horrible since the room is super tiny. It's more of an over-sized closet with a window.

A few months after moving back in, we also added some white wire Elfa shelving (Container Store). I considered cabinetry but in the end I figured this is a laundry room and making stuff easy to access may encourage Handy Hubby to do the laundry (which he generally does fortunately!). We also have an extendable drying rack hanging on the right wall which works really well for our purposes.

We bought our new high efficiency LG washer and dryer this past winter during a serious sale at Best Buy. I really like them and I think I am finally figuring out a lot of the settings on the washer. Dryer is pretty straightforward thankfully.

I actually ended up really liking the color in here. It's a nice cheerful green without being blindingly bright. The floor is a cheap-o hexagon ceramic tile from Home Depot - another 5 minute decision literally standing in the tile aisle 9 months pregnant at 9 p.m. a few days before I had Alex. Fortunately I found someone to lift the boxes!

Since we put the shelving up, we have done nothing with the room otherwise. I pretty much threw all of the stuff on the shelves and left it. This has also become a landing place for things like the dog's cone collar and some extra dog towels. Not exactly pretty to look at it. Although the room has a pocket door, we pretty rarely close it except if we are doing laundry after the kids go to bed.

So, here's the spiffed up laundry room...

 

The bins are all from Target. The color works amazingly well with the wall color. I made the window treatment with $10 worth of fabric that I purchased a few months ago on a whim. I'll give you the quick and dirty tutorial tomorrow. The painting is from REfind which I purchased for the basement guest room but I gave it an easy make-over update that I'll also share later this week. At which point, you can also weigh in on whether you like it or not.

Finally, I had been thinking about changing the light fixture but now I kind of like the dark accent which picks up on the dark tones in the painting and the fabric window treatment so it stays for now. {big sigh of relief from the Handy Hubby}

I now loving walking past this room - which I do many times each day from the stairs to our room.

Any easy updates going on in your house?

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IHEART Organizing

Making a Dreaded Chore SOOOO Much Easier!

I bet I got your attention with that headline!  If ironing is the bane of your existence then this post is for you.  We are HORRIBLE about putting away our clean laundry quickly enough to avoid wrinkles.  As a result, we often have to do a quick run over our clothes before dashing out of the door.  Our large bulky ironing board has generally resided in our upstairs guest room but lived in one of our hall linen closets.  Since we don't spend much any time ironing sheets and other large items so the large ironing board was really overkill for us. 

So, when we came to be proud owners of a second floor laundry room (LOVE IT!), I really started thinking about how we could incorporate a wall-mounted ironing board into the mix.  I happened to mention it to my mom and she said they had taken one out of their house that we could have!  FREE!  Love that!  Parents to the rescue again.


When my parents were last in town, my dad and Jim set out to install said ironing board.  We first considered putting it in our laundry room but the electrical outlet positioning was an issue and there was not an obvious wall location.

My dad had the idea to put it behind the door in our room.  Basically invisible to anyone walking by but really convenient for us - particularly if we need to iron while we have guests in the house, since we are usually doing our ironing in less than presentable attire!


Here are some pictures of the new (to us) fancy ironing board.

It definitely needs a new cover because the elastic is pretty much gone but for free, I'm not complaining!  I love that there's a place to keep the iron inside and a spray bottle or spray starch - if I used spray starch!  Here's a similar one on Amazon.

Jim and my dad also opted to move our bathrobe hook to the wall from the door so the door could open further when the bathrobes are hanging there - the ironing board was getting in the way a bit.  Of course, they hid the holes in the door by moving the mirror up!!

In case you are wondering, there is still room to open the door and for an average size person, or a little person who sleeps down the hall, to slip through when necessary.

I can honestly say that we have done more ironing in the last 2 weeks since it was installed than we have all summer.  Hopefully our neater appearance is impressing our friends and coworkers!