Our laundry room is finally complete and here is the official reveal! 🎉 This was the last major remodel that Chris and I completed in the Smoke House renovation. We focused our renovation efforts on the rest of the house and now that the laundry room makeover is complete I’m 100% in love with it!

This laundry room makeover could be completed in one weekend and for a pretty affordable cost! Chris and I sort of drug our feet with this renovation and slowly worked on it over time. We had an entire house to renovate first. 🙂 Chris and I spent approximately $300 on this laundry room renovation. The key to an affordable makeover is DIY. Over the next few weeks I will post “How To” guides to help you easily accomplish this look on a budget.

Chris and I DIY’d this entire project and this post will highlight everything we did to accomplish this laundry room renovation.

The Before: Laundry Room

When we moved into the Smoke House the laundry room, like all other rooms, was in rough shape. I will say, since the laundry room was relatively separate from the rest of the house the smoke residue in here was no where near as bad as it was for the rest of the house. However, smoke tar gets on everything no matter how many doors stand in the way.

The laundry room was originally painted blue with what I imagine was once white trim. Due to the years of heavy cigarette smoke from the previous owner the white trim was tented with cigarette tar, which made the trim more of a pink/brown beige. The floor was cheap, dingy, worn down tan(ish) linoleum. The room had one cabinet secured to the wall above the washer and dryer and one tall cabinet loosely sitting next to the washer and dryer – ready to tip over at any point.

To wrap it all up the popcorn ceiling was covered in slightly tinged brown cigarette tar. With an outdated brass and frosted light fixture in the center of the ceiling.

Here is my best photo of the before view of the laundry room. My iPhone was on its last leg so this was the best I could do at the time.

Changes We Made

The only thing that stayed in this room is the external door leading to the garage. We completely gutted this room and structurally rearranged it. P.S. The door leading to the garage still needs to be painted. 😆

Step 1: Remove Popcorn Ceiling

On the first night we moved-in Chris and I began removing all the popcorn ceiling throughout the entire house. This took us a couple of days. Y’all – it was a nasty mess. As we wet the popcorn ceiling we were covered in “brown rain”. Smoke residue definitely makes any task much more daunting.

The photo below is from our master bed room, but you get the idea. 🙂

Step 2: Remove Baseboards, Trim, & Floor

After we removed the popcorn ceilings we removed all of the trim and baseboards. Then we removed the linoleum floor.

The photo below was taken in the kitchen, but the floor removal process was the same for the laundry room (just behind me in this photo).

Step 3: Move the Laundry Room Door

Another project we tackled early on was moving the door between the kitchen and the laundry room. We also down sized that door to the skinniest door I could get away with.

I’m not going to lie, our laundry room stayed in that bare state for almost two years before we had the time to focus on beautifying this room.

The major renovation project we did in the laundry room was move the door to the kitchen from the center of the wall to the far left side of the same wall. Or, far right side on the kitchen side. Below is the kitchen side view of how we moved the laundry room door.

When I first toured this house I was at a loss why someone would place a door in the very center of a wall in a small space. By doing so it renders that entire wall as useless space.

To make best use of this small laundry room I knew we had to move the door as far as we could to one corner of the laundry room. That way we could make use of that entire wall – both in the laundry room and in the kitchen.

We also downsized the door. That wall, both for the laundry room and the kitchen, was precious real estate. It was important that we replaced the regular sized door with the slimmest door we could get away with. I love to do this with small spaces like laundry rooms and pantries.

We installed a 28 inch wide door that we picked up from Home Depot.

Below is the after photo. You can see from the photo above compared to the photo below what a massive difference it made in simply moving the door to the laundry room.

Our laundry room also functions as our kitty sanctuary. We needed a place to safely store the cat food and cat litter away from the dog (who happens to love cat food and cat poop – gross). This room also created a place where the cats could go to get away from the dog. Pepper has no boundaries, y’all.

We installed this super cute XL cat door from Amazon. We obviously needed the XL cat door because of… Theo. He’s a big cat. Even with the largest cat door installed he still has to duck pretty low to enter the room.

How We Moved the Door

This was a life changing decision! Once we moved the entry door to the laundry room we had an entire extra wall of space in the laundry room!

The first thing I did was design our kitchen with the IKEA Kitchen Design Planner (a free tool!). I mapped out the footprint of our space and planned all our IKEA cabinet locations with this tool. This tool is how I determined the final location of the laundry room door in the kitchen.

We removed the old door and removed the sheet rock where the new door would be installed.

Once the old door and sheet rock were removed, we installed a treated 2 X 4 board to the concrete where the old door used to be. Then we installed a 2 X 4 stud on top of that treated 2 X 4 plate.

Pro Tip: All wood attached directly to concrete must be treated wood.

We removed the existing stud from the location where we would install the new laundry room door. We reused the old stud in a new location for this wall – rather than buy a new stud. We framed out the new door location with 2 X 4s and installed a 2 X 8 header.

Then we placed the new framed door (28 inches wide) in the new door opening. We shimed around the door so it was level and plum. Then we used brad nails to secure the door in place.

Once we installed the new door we cut and attached sheet rock with drywall screws.

After we installed the sheet rock we taped and floated the seems.

The last step in moving the entry door to the laundry room was texture and paint. We taped off the door and used a hopper (we picked this up at a pawn shop) to texture the wall. We went with an orange peel texture for the walls and ceiling.

Then we used a paint sprayer to spray the entire living space Silky White by Behr.

Step 3: Paint Laundry Door

I knew I wanted a gray trim and doors with white walls – so dreamy!! The white walls were an easy pick. I painted our guest bedroom in our previous home with this exact same white (Silky White by Behr). I painted that room shortly before we moved and fell in love with the creamy white color. Take a closer look at this paint sample online here, it’s not a pure white and I love it!

When we moved into the Smoke House I knew I had to have Silky White on all my walls. It makes this home feel larger and more light and airy. One of the latest trends that I’ve fallen in love with is colored baseboards and doors. And I love the warmth of a beautiful gray contrasting with white.

The challenge was choosing a gray paint – isn’t it always?! What’s the deal, gray paint? Why must you be so deceiving? My previous home was a house of 50 shades of gray (basically), but I still find myself struggling to pick out a gray paint.

The first color I decided to go with was Universal Grey by Glidden. Y’all, I just KNEW this was the gray! I painted it all over my laundry room door and trim. I even bought a 5 gallon bucket to do all the baseboards, trim, and doors in my home.

But when I started painting the other doors and trim in my home I realized that Universal Grey wasn’t so… universal. It looked lovely in a spot without much natural light but once I started to put it all over I noticed it was more purple than gray. That five gallon bucket is still sitting out in my garage. Anyone want it?

The below trim color is Universal Grey.

After that devastating loss I went to Sherwin Williams and bought about 10 to 15 gray samples. I put gray samples of paint all over the place in this house. I eventually went with the winner – Repose Gray by Sherwin Williams.

After my journey of finding my ideal gray (and finding myself along the way 🤣) I repainted the laundry room door with Repose Gray. Love it.

I believe the best way to paint a door, baseboards, and trim is to spray paint it with a sprayer! I’ve used so many Door and Cabinet Foam Rollers – which are designed to paint doors – and I’ve never loved the finish. No matter how much I sand between coats those rollers always leave dimples and imperfections.

If you really want a genuine smooth finish, which I did, I highly recommend using a sprayer like the Graco Magnum sprayer we have or renting one from Home Depot or Lowe’s. PLUS, the sprayer seriously cuts down on the time it takes to paint a crap load of things!

Chris and I sprayed the laundry room door, trim, and baseboards outside and then installed them after they were painted. I love this technique because it avoids the need to tape off the walls and floor. Taping things off is a seriously daunting task.

Step 4: Install Flooring

The floor in the laundry room and throughout the house is a wood-look tile. We used Ashland Beige Wood Plank Porcelain Tile from Floor & Decor (love this store!). We also used Mapei Chamois FlexColor Grout (from Floor & Decor). Holy hell, y’all! This grout is life changing. LIFE CHANGING. It comes pre-mixed WITH the sealant already included. Beautiful, I tell you! Beautiful.

The main reason Chris and I decided on a tile wood-look flooring throughout our house was our desire to have herringbone floors.

I really, really wanted a herringbone wood-look floor throughout the whole house. It was going to be challenging and expensive to find a laminate or other wood alternative flooring that we would be able to install herringbone. Most wood alternative flooring is designed to be installed in straight rows.

I need you to understand that laying tile is not very difficult and ANYONE can do this! This is one of the easiest major DIY projects you can do in your home. The thing is it’s time consuming.

I find tile laying therapeutic, for the most part. After about 8 months of laying tile it wasn’t as therapeutic as it was for the first couple of months. 🤣 Laying tile is very similar to mosaic-ing. I used to mosaic all of the time as a hobby in college and this is simply mosaic-ing on a larger scale. I repeat, ANYONE can do this.

I laid most of our tile floor my self (through the entire house). Chris helped me cut some of the funkier pieces and he helped lay tile while I was out of town for work. Mostly, this was all me.

Laying the tile for the laundry room did not take very long. I think I knocked it out in a couple of nights one week. After we cut and laid all the tile I let it set over night and came in the next day and grouted it.

Step 5: Install Baseboards

You will make your life so much easier if you set up your baseboards, doors, and trim outside on saw horses (or anything you have at hand) and spray them with a spray painter. Our spray painter is a Graco Magnum sprayer and we used it for almost all renovations in the Smoke House reno.

We don’t own a ton of saw horses so we used anything we had laying around to keep the baseboards off the ground as we sprayed them. Below is our hodgepodge of materials we used to keep our baseboards, trim, and doors off the ground. We used an old work bench, the doors that we eventually threw away, buckets, and saw horses.

Also, we sprayed all the baseboards in our house at one time. The below photo is not just the baseboards for our laundry room.

We let the baseboards dry over night and then cut them to size and installed them with a brad nailer.

Step 6: Install Faux Shiplap

Chris and I very rarely use real shiplap in our renovations. Real shiplap is more expensive and the faux shiplap we use gives the shiplap look a more raw and rustic vibe, which I love. I plan to create a blog post about How to Faux Shiplap in the very near future!

Knowing a how-to post is coming soon I’ll only share a brief overview of our faux shiplap. We used 1/4 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. Sanded Pine Plywood. We purchased our plywood form Home Depot. We ripped our plywood to 6 inch wide planks. Home Depot or Lowe’s may be willing to rip this down for you in store for free if you ask!

We use a fence which is a guide Chris built to help us cut boards straight. I have a how-to guide coming soon on How to Build a Fence as well. Below is a photo of Chris using our DIY fence to cut our plywood planks.

Once we cut each plywood board to 6 inch wide planks we sprayed them Silky White by Behr with our Graco Magnum sprayer.

After the paint dried (it only took a couple of hours) we installed them on every wall in our laundry room from ceiling to floor. We started by installing a full board along the ceiling with a brad nailer and then cut as needed and worked our way down. The idea is to have no symmetry in your board lengths.

We installed our gray baseboards at the bottom before we installed the Faux Shiplap.

We used a nickel to place between each plywood plank to get that perfect shiplap gap.

After I installed each board to the wall I went back and filled each nail hole with caulk and then covered that caulk with some paint. You can leave the nail holes raw if you want a more rustic look.

I debated about installing faux shiplap on every wall or to use a stencil to stencil paint each wall. After seeing the faux shiplap I’m so in love with my decision.

Step 7: Build & Install Shelves

Here is a complete how-to guide on How to Build and Install Farmhouse Shelves. This how-to guide goes into detail on how Chris and I built and installed our laundry room shelving. This how-to guide also provides direct links to all products we used.

We measured from wall to wall for each shelf (2) and countertop (1) that we planned to install.

Then we stained each shelf with poly + stain in Classic Oak. We let the poly + stain dry over night and then cut all boards to size the following day.

The shelves were one solid piece. We used two 2 in. x 12 in. x 8 ft. Pine Boards from Home Depot to create two shelves. We cut each board to size and installed them with four 12 in. Black Steel Shelf Brackets from Home Depot.

We built the countertop (sitting directly above the washer and dryer) with three 2 in. x 4 in. x 8 ft. Pine Boards (for the structural frame) and six 2 in. x 6 in. x 8 ft. Pine Boards (for the countertop). All lumber was purchased from Home Depot.

For the countertop we first built and installed the structural frame to studs in the wall. Then we installed the countertop – once built – directly to the structural frame. To see exactly how we did this check out my How to Build and Install Farmhouse Shelves post or watch my YouTube video How to Build and Install Laundry Room Shelves on a Budget.

Step 8: Decorate

I went with a low-key and functional decor aesthetic. I wanted the room to feel light and airy since it was a small room. I also wanted it to have boxes and baskets that I can easily access and use on a daily basis.

To avoid placing all the baskets on the two lower levels (within arms reach) I spread them out across all three shelves. The items I do not need to access regularly (cat litter) I placed in the basket on the top shelf. I also wanted to store the blue bags of cat litter in the top basket because that basket does not allow it’s contents to be seen.

The metal baskets on the middle shelf is where I store my washcloths and hand towels. I typically roll these so it provides more dimension and texture. I also store my extra white towels on either side of the metal baskets on the middle shelf.

I placed more items on the middle shelf so that I could anchor the look. The top and bottom shelves need fewer items. This helps avoid a cluttered and overwhelming look.

I also prefer to store my everyday items in more esthetically pleasing containers. As an example, I poured my laundry detergent, bleach, and fabric softener in these super cute 1/2 gallon jugs by Church Street Designs.

Another item I re-homed are my dryer sheets. I absolutely LOVE the Downy Infusions Dryer Sheets CALM in Laundry and Vanilla Bean scent. OMG – these dryer sheets are addicting. I buy the fabric softener as well. I seriously lose my sh*t when I run out of these.

I keep my dryer sheets in the cute Studio McGee Decorative Wood Edge Trim Box. That way I don’t have to look at the packaging they come in; rather, I have a very pleasing box to reach for instead. #Winning

Shop the Look

woven baskets | metal basket | stem in vase | white trash can | striped hand towel | similar white pet food bowl | starburst mirror | flush mount light | home iron holder | ironing board cover | white hand towel | Studio McGee box | white ceramic bowl | laundry co. sign | wall mount gold basket | laundry jugs | metal bracket | cat litter box | letter board