Hiding the Water Heater

We love the character our home has. Its old, its not perfect but we kind of like it that way.  However, there are some things that we really just don't like.  For example, the giant black box covering the old wood stove exit pipe in our kitchen or the fact that our water heater just sits in plain view in our laundry room.  I guess if we had a real laundry room, with a door, it wouldn't be such a big deal but our house is not set up that way. Our "laundry room"  is a part of a shared space that is very much part of our house.  Here's some photos to show you what I'm talking about...

Ok, so here is our laundry room on the day we moved in.  This was probably one of the most ugly spots in our house.  This is also the direct view from our bedroom.  

This room sat untouched for a while as we worked on other things.  But you can see the doors in the photo.  The left photo is our bathroom and the right is our closet.  This is also an exit for our backyard - so we get lots of traffic through here.

So we started painting to brighten things up - we love the cheery yellow.  But the eyesore in the corner drove me crazy.  It also became the storage spot for things like our broom and steam mop...we don't have any sort of pantry or closet for those things.  I also have a little basket for trash back here - when I pull out the gum wrappers from pockets and also the lint from the dryer.  

So I found a simple solution for now - peg boards.  I actually already had these up in the attic.  So I pulled them down, gave them a little paint job, added a few brackets and I was done!

Bye, bye ugly water heater.

Something so small as hiding the water heater has made me love this space so much more.  One day I would love to get a stackable washer and dryer and then re-work this laundry space.  For now though, our washer and dryer work and we have bigger projects to think about so its staying this way.

I love how much brighter this space is becoming...

Hope you guys had a wonderful weekend!  I have more organizing going on and more projects to share this week!  

Organizing All of That Laundry

So we are back in the laundry room today and talking about organization.  After installing our new shelving we had a ton of space for storage and we are still trying to work it all out.  Before now our laundry was all over the place, in different rooms, piled in closets - we were having issues.  So when installing our shelves we knew we wanted to create a designated laundry sorting station that would be organized, easy to get to and out of the way.  So we decided to use the space underneath our shelving for our laundry sorting.  Only thing is, we had some beat up laundry baskets - that were overflowing (especially since we now have four people living here).   This wasn't working for me..

So we went on a search for new laundry bins and this is what we ended up deciding on: Crate & Barrel's Folding Bins - and we love them.  For one, it looks so much better and two, they are large enough to handle all of the laundry coming through this space now.  Now, these things were not cheap.  We searched so many different stores - even the discount ones and we couldn't find something that we liked at a lower price, this style bin was even more expensive at one discount store.  We decided that our current laundry system was driving us absolutely nuts and investing in something we liked was worth it - and it definitely has been.  This space is also an open space in our house and the main way to exit to the backyard so having our laundry hanging out all over the place was a little awkward.  At least with these bins everything is tucked away and hidden much better.

Laundry is no longer piled up, scattered and taking up valuable space in our little home.

So now I'm on to deciding on something for the actual shelves.  Everything is organized and labeled but the mismatched bins are driving me crazy.  For now it's all good but I'm definitely on the look out for something a little more streamlined and pleasing to the eye for this open storage.  So stay tuned, I'll be sharing what we do soon!

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!  Don't forget to go and enter the giveaway at Sew Gloried!  

All is Well

Peace and rest has been brought back into our house today after a long week with one sick little boy. It's so hard to even think when you have a little one who is absolutely miserable. But thankfully that time has now passed and things are on the mend, needless to say house stuff was the last thing on my mind last week.

One thing we did narrow down however, before the sickness crept in was to decide on a paint color for our laundry room area.  The only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted it be bright and cheerful, and that's exactly what we are going for.

One of these colors will be winning out the bright and cheerful competition, so you will have to stick around to see who does.

I think I've decided on a darker slate color for the floor that I will painting, like we did in our half bath. Still not sure on which as of yet.

In other news, we shared before that we have been doing some updating to some of our student spaces at church.  We have gone from this...

To this...

I thought it would be fun to share what we did and how - since it was difficult for us to find inspiration when we set out on this journey.  More on that later this week.

I hope everyone is healthy and well this week and has a peaceful and relaxing Monday!