After a very unproductive April, the One Room Challenge was exactly what I needed! Do you remember when I completed the challenge last year and gave our guest bedroom a very YELLOW makeover?! Though it was a lot of work, I loved seeing a fully finished room at the end of it all! And after living in the middle of a renovation since the start of January, I’m craving one room ticked off the list!
So I chose the utility room to revamp. At the moment it’s a bit of a messy, blank slate. It’s a small enough room 2m x 1.7m in size, but it needs to pack a punch, functionally wise. I have big plans for this little space! So let’s see where we’re starting…
One Room Challenge Before Pics
Pretty grim eh?! So as you can see in the above mood board my plan is to put storage along the wall opposite the boiler. We kept the presses that were in the old utility rooml so hopefully we can reuse them, paint them pink and get black handles.
Running alone the wall under the boiler will be a countertop. We have a laminate countertop but I was hoping to add a layer of white concrete. I’m finding it really hard to research ways of doing this in Ireland/UK, as all products and tutorials I’ve found have been based in America. If you have any ideas on how I could do it, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!
OK, so under that countertop will be the washing machine, dryer and then a storage press with a sink above. We were hoping to reuse our old utility room sink but I think our builder may have dumped it by accident. Hopefully we can find a cheap second-hand one because this whole makeover needs to be done on a serious budget!
I’m hoping to build something to cover the boiler and the pipes but it needs to be removable so that we can still access it. Next to that, the plan is to install open shelving with lots of artwork, plants and baskets for storage.
Finally, we can’t forget about the ceiling! I bought a gorgeous terrazzo patterned light to hang here and I’m hoping to find some peel and stick wallpaper that would look great against that pattern … I was thinking floral, but now I’m leaning towards geometric!
Links to my favourite mood board items!
- Hello Sunshine neon sign – There is a plug, high up on the wall where the open shelving will be. This used to be the plug of the old kitchen extractor fan and I’m thinking of making use of it to light up something cool. This sign might be out of my budget, I’ll see closer to the end!
- Coffee Cake paint by Fleetwood paints – We painted some of our bedroom wardrobes in this colour and I have some left over so I’m going to use it up! Click here for a tutorial on how we painted those laminate cabinets!
- Classic Oak Beige by Quickstep – Our flooring almost everywhere downstairs and we love it! If you want help choosing flooring I wrote a huge blog post about it!
- Diffuser by The Handmade Soap company – Love a fragrance in every room and I prefer diffusers to scented candles if the room isn’t always in use!
- Terrazzo patterned light – It was love at first sight with this one! Turned out to be the starter of the whole mood board!
- Patterned jute rug – Love this one by H&M. I just bought it and got 25% off because I signed up for the newsletter!
I’ll be writing a post each week throughout the One Room Challenge. My plan for this week coming is to get started on painting the presses. Bring it on!!!
And don’t forget that so many people have started this challenge across the world! Click here to visit the One Room Challenge homepage so you can scroll through some of the amazing projects that started today!