New Year, New Laundry Room: Milk Toast Champagne Toast

We closed on our house at the end of September. On first glance, it seemed as though everything was perfect: stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, no major cracks or holes, and plenty of hardwood floors.

Granted, we had been looking mostly at fixer-upers, because we didn't think we could afford a real house in our ideal neighborhood.

But we got lucky. Insanely lucky. And we bought our little gem.

But like all beauty, it's not just on the outside. As the days went by, we began to notice small things that we wanted to tweak. They didn't drive us crazy, just made us reconsider our plan to not do anything to the house.

Like the fact that the ceiling in the living room and dining room matched the color of paint on the walls, and said color is called "Milk Toast." Seriously? Who paints a wall "Milk Toast?" Who names a paint "Milk Toast?" And who on earth paints a ceiling "Milk Toast!!"

So, we painted the ceiling. And the walls. And we started to feel better. But, that was just the beginning.

The other day, during what was supposed to be our vacation (read: romantic construction getaway weekend with paint speckled jeans, grout, and spackle) we decided to tackle the smallest room in our house: the laundry room.

So, we heaved our washer and dryer into our den (lovely Seahorse pallet art that I made by hand-cutting a stencil... I picked seahorse because that is the theme for our wedding that got drowned out by Hurricane Sandy, but WILL happen in March of 2013, yay!) and got to work.

Here's the picture of the laundry room before. Looks just fine, right? Well, we have a golden retriever who loves mud. And the walls were tired, the floor was constantly dirty, and the molding was peeling off in places.

So we headed to our new favorite place, Home Depot, and purchased some Blue Regatta paint. Just to find out that the previous homeowners must have used high gloss hairspray on the walls before, because NOTHING would stick. It was a nightmare. It took about 3 coats just to cover the walls! But we finally did it.

Then, we used Shasta linoleum tiles. We picked them because they are peel and stick, relatively inexpensive at a little over $1 a tile, and you can grout them, which makes them look more professional. So we bought some earth colored grout, and got to work. We used 1/8 inch spacers, peeled the backs off (which is trickier than you might think), and cut the tiles around the edges, which I kind of wish we had a proper saw to do, as scissors just didn't cut it (bad pun, sorry). After everything was down, I grouted, which is basically just spackling and washing everything off constantly with a sponge. Constantly is an understatement. After almost 48 hours, we had this:

Divine! Actually, it wasn't so bad, it was relatively cheap, and a good DIY project. Plus, we learned that the tiles and grout worked really well, so our next project is to redo the downstairs bathroom (the only bathroom in the house that hasn't been updated.) Stay tuned and we demo, put in wainscoting, and paint to our hearts' content!