Pee Worthy?

OK, weird title, I know, but stick with me here.

Our home's half bathroom/laundry room has been a source of design stress for me since we moved in. It is an awkward layout because of the washer and dryer hookup locations and more importantly because THERE IS A BATHROOM IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM! It's a little strange. 

Here's a look at what it looked like when we bought the house:

As you can tell, this is the room that sold us on this home. Isn't she beautiful? (That square thing on the left isn't a washer or dryer...it's the hot water heater.)

OK. Let's be serious, it's scary and that green wall color isn't helping anything. So the first thing we did was paint the entire room a neutral color. We also removed the black baskets to help de-clutter the laundry room side. The layout really couldn't be helped so we've kept it as is, but a few cute baskets for organizations and some artwork helped give the laundry side of the room some design help. We also finally hung up our ironing board which gets it off the ground and gives a little more room to move. 

Here's what that side of the room looks like now:

Now the bathroom side of the room needed some serious help as well. Basically the goal was to figure out a way to make it feel like a bathroom that isn't in a laundry room. 

Here's what we've done to help make this bathroom nice enough for our friends to pee in:

• We took down the swirly mirror with the built in lights since it wasn't really our style. (I tried painting it a bright color to make it work since the lights being attached is super handy, but I still didn't dig it so it got trashed.)
• The mirror was replaced with a simple oval mirror with a dark brown wood frame. 
• We also replaced the cabinet pulls. The silver and white combo that was originally there was upgraded to a simple bronze pull. 
• The light was a pain to figure out how to replace since the electrical box was in the wall and NOT centered. It made life a challenge, but luckily we found a solution with a $15 target pendant light. 
• I added a rug which perfectly fills the area in front of the sink and toilet and brings your eye to that space instead of the laundry area. 
• The window got a lovely bamboo shade to add privacy. (Kinda important in a bathroom.)
• I also put up two inexpensive pieces of artwork, one on each side of the window to tie both sides of the room together. 

Check out the pictures of our newly updated space:

So it's still a little awkward considering the first thing you see when you open the door is a dryer, but it is leaps and bounds from where it started. I'm digging it and I'm super excited that I can now call this room "pee worthy". What a victory, right?

Until next time...

No More Peeping

We finally have window shades! 

Purchasing some sort of bamboo shades for our windows has been on my to-do list since the day we bought the house and I'm glad to finally have them in place. I found an awesome website which sells all sorts of shades and wallpaper at wholesale prices. We were able to get six window shades in custom sizes for $250 with shipping. Pretty dang awesome. If you're interested, the website is www.stevesblindsandwallpaper.com.

We've taken care of the dining room, living room, laundry room and den and hope to order shades for the guest room and master bedroom soon. Here's a picture of the bamboo shades in the living room and dining room. They really turned out great. They block tons of light which makes it perfect for movie watching and most importantly, they give us much need privacy. What do you think?

Our main living room window went from this...

to this...

The best thing about these shades are the fact that they are SUPER easy to put up. Brent was able to put them up basically all on his own in no time at all. All you have to do is screw the metal bracket into your window frame and slide on the shade. We are officially HUGE fans of this company...good quality, fast shipping, great price, and easy installation. I'm ready to order more.

Until next time...