Back to THE ROOM THAT DIDN’T EXIST A FEW WEEKS AGO. Pardon my type-screaming, but it doesn’t get much more exciting than that in my world. (Sidenote: I had a dream last night that there was a column in the newspaper called Shellac This! – all about shellacking a different piece of furniture each day – and the world was so enamored with it that normal morning conversation was “did you see what they shellacked this morning in Shellac This?” and it was getting turned into a major motion picture).

We left you with a primed-&-ready picture of our new laundry room in Monday’s post, so let’s start there (we used VOC-free Kilz Premium from Home Depot). This room is only around 7′ wide by 8′ deep so it went pretty fast. Here she is all ready for paint:

Oh but before picking a paint color we picked floor tile. It’s from The Tile Shop & it’s called Blast Anthracite. It’s $6.59 a square foot so the whole floor will be around $350 (we got 10% off with the YHL10 discount code). We loved how it looked with the accent tile we bought (remember that will go above the washer & dryer but below the wall cabinets).

We appreciated that the floor tile wasn’t too light (read: it won’t show every ball of lint or hair) and that it would look good running up against the hardwoods in the hallway (it always helps to remember what will be next to what). But the main thing that sold us are the striations. You can sort of see the pretty veins and variations in this shot, but in person they’re gorgeous.

After we picked the tile, I sat down and played around with a little mood board action – just to see what we liked together, and to figure out what wall color we wanted. Of course everything here might change as we go (except for the appliances and tile picks), but it feels like a nice place to start:

1. Some warm wood elements will balance out the gray tile & the shiny appliances – like a butcher block counter for the cabinet next to the appliances.
2. Here’s our washer & dryer (more on those here).
3. We think this cozy room is a nice spot to try out one of the newer designs from our Shades of Light collection.
4. This colored basket is charming. Colorful yet natural. So… coltural?
5. I’ve been pining after these prints for a long time, and the laundry room might be just the place.
6. A cute wood letterpress drawer on the wall could display something Clara & I have been collecting for a while…
7. White cabinets to tie into our appliances and make the butcher block pop.
8. These knobs could be fun on the cabinets – especially since they resemble our lighting choice.
9. Here’s the tile we already got for the wall above the washer & dryer (more on that here).
10. And here’s our floor tile.
11. Last we have a Dash & Albert rug to add a little more texture and a hint of color.

After playing around and seeing things like the tile and the warm wood tones with some colorful art come together, we were ready to pick our wall color. We knew we wanted something light (it’s not very big and doesn’t have any windows), but we also didn’t want to go with stark white since we want the trim and the cabinets to feel more like architecture by standing out a bit from the wall color. But finding a good light-but-not-white tone for the walls still felt a little arbitrary (hello 167 swatches, I’m sure one of you will be perfect). So we decided to make a more abstract, in-person mood board right in the room:

We just sort of grabbed things from around the house that we thought could loosely represent materials/colors/patterns that might end up in there, like the shiny white drum stool (it’s really close in color to our appliances), our tile samples, some warm wood tones, etc. Oh and the terrarium actually represents the light fixture, since it has similar coloring and lines.

Bringing all of these things together into the room made picking a paint color feel less arbitrary (we could hold swatches up to the tile and the wood tones and the finishes and see what looked best right in the room). And imagine our surprise when our favorite swatch ended up being Going To The Chapel by Benjamin Moore – which we actually used in Teddy’s room! We like the idea of repeating that color somewhere else in our house since we’re fans of a whole-house palette that ties together, usually with a few colors that reoccur a few times. So into the laundry room it went (we went with an eggshell finish in BM’s VOC-free Natura line).

I realize that photo isn’t wildly different than the priming one that started this post, but in person the room went from feeling stark and unfinished to feeling a lot more polished and room-like. And it was amazing to give the new end of the hallway a fresh coat of paint to tie it into the original walls. Aside from those raw doorways and floors, it looks like it has always been this way!

Remember we were just drawing on pictures a month ago and now these rooms and doorways are a reality?!

I can’t wait to get our special glass door to the future bunk-room in. Speaking of that, we picked one out! After considering a bunch of options (something that came frosted, one big glass pane, etc) we decided it would feel nice and cohesive to go with the same type of 15-paned glass door that we have downstairs leading out to the deck.

We also would love to add glass paned french doors like that to the office someday (like this), so knowing that those would be the same style felt like it was a good choice for upstairs as well. That way they might all look original, if that makes sense. And we liked the idea of the glass being clear so that we have the option of frosting it or adding a shade from behind the door (like this) instead of committing to a frosted door forever.

The good news is that it’s an in-stock door at Home Depot so it’s only $149. We do have to paint it ourselves and of course frame it in, add hinges, add a knob, etc – but it’s going to be one of my favorite parts, I just know it. So now our to-do list looks something like this:

• Move washer & dryer and remove cabinetry (more on that here)
• Demo cased opening, side wall, back wall, part of the floor and the attic step
• Frame new walls & doorways
• Move laundry plumbing hook-ups & drains
• Move laundry electrical (plus other lights, switches, and outlets) (more on those last four bullets here)
• Move dryer vent & HVAC duct (more on that here)
• Hang drywall (more on that here)
• Add insulation (more on that here)
• Mud, tape, and sand all the drywall seams in the new room (more on that here) 
  
• Prime & paint laundry room and hallway walls
• Tile & grout new laundry floor
• Add baseboards and door casings
• Rehang laundry door
• Add new glass door to future bunk-room
• Add upper cabinetry and crown molding
• Add lower cabinet next to washer & dryer with countertop
• Tile & grout laundry room backsplash
• Reinstall washer & dryer
• Add ceiling light fixture
• Hang art, ironing board, and bring in other laundry room items
• Finishing touches and repairs (drywall in garage, step in attic, etc)

So before we hang any doors we have to install & grout the laundry room floor tile, which we hope to have done by Monday. I can’t even handle how much that’s going to make things feel like a room. And we’ll be one step closer to bringing the washer & dryer back in. I know doing laundry doesn’t excite many people, but the idea of being able to wash things at home again is pretty captivating to this girl right now. I predict a reenactment of Happy Feet while those machines hum.