It’s week 2 of the ORC and I am so excited to share the laundry room design plan with you. A quick recap if you are new here: The ORC is a biannual event that celebrates and encourages bloggers, DIYS, designers, and influencers to complete a room over eight weeks. Last spring, I renovated our office and this time around, I’ll be designing my mother-in-law’s (Darla) laundry room. Last week, I talked about the process I used to design the room with Darla. This week I’ll show you what we are actually doing.

The Concept Boards

As I mentioned last week, I started by creating three concept boards for Darla’s laundry room, each with a different feel and collection of elements. The first concept board is feminine and traditional. It has lots of warm tones and emphasized floral prints.

The second concept board is textural and natural. It focuses on casual living with a strong inspiration from the outdoors (gardening and animals). It has a vinyl grass-cloth wallpaper which would be subtle but elegant.

The last concept board was fresh and modern. It focused on geometric patterns and light colors. The furnishing/accessories are streamlined, but it feels playful with a capiz light and gemstone hardware.

Darla quickly decided that she liked board number 3 best. She specifically wanted the geometric wallpaper (more modern), nickel hardware (to match the rest of the house), and the light/bright interior. She prefers green to blue and likes natural woven materials, like wicker.

Armed with that knowledge and after a few more meetings to pick each element, we created a design board with the final selections.

Laundry Room Design Board – Final

Ta-da! Here she is! I know the design board feels a little underwhelming since none of the styling accessories are included. But this is the foundational layer of the room and I think it’s charming. I’ll go through the plan for all the elements so you can understand how they will be used.

We plan on installing beadboard at ~3/4 wall height with a thick decorative chair rail on top. I originally wanted to use a chair rail with a braided pattern (like the one above), but I’m not convinced. I am worried that it’ll feel a little out of place with the more modern aesthetic of the room (although good contrast never hurt anyone!) So we’ll see where we end up. The green geometric trellis wallpaper will be installed on the upper 1/4 of the walls. All the millwork will be painted a bright white, the same color as Darla’s current baseboards/moldings.

We’ll switch out her builder-grade boob light for this sophisticated semi-flush mount one. This light is very affordable but feels really nice. The bottom diffuser is glass and the extra decorative arms connecting the drum to the base create a nice moment. Darla has 9 foot high ceilings, so having a little space between the ceiling and the light is doable.

Her cabinets will get a couple of minor updates, too. First, we’ll install gorgeous handles on all the doors. Seriously, these thick nickel handles are heavy-duty and feel very nice in your hand. They are a little expensive ($12/pull) but worth the splurge. In addition, we’ll place large wicker baskets with lids on top of the cabinets to create extra storage and make that additional space feel intentional. The baskets are the one thing we did not order ahead of time. I was hoping to find some options locally. Darla and I plan on going on a bit of a shopping trip to (fingers crossed) find the perfect ones. However, the color tone of the wicker in the design board is ideal. It corresponds well to the floor and brings warmth since the room is on the cooler side with white paint and green patterned wallpaper.

The last element of the room is an indoor/outdoor green braided rug. The rug is durable enough to be used on a patio and should be easy to clean with a pressure washer. Remember, Darla’s laundry room is also her main entrance from the garage, so this rug will see a lot of action throughout the years. I particularly love that it has white, beige, and green fibers in the weave. We ended up ordering the larger size (2′ x 4′), so it would cover most of the floor.

I mocked up the room with the final elements, so Darla could visualize it. I ended up creating two versions, one with the wallpaper Darla picked (on the left) and one with a maze-like wallpaper (right). Darla really liked the maze wallpaper and wavered for a minute on how she wanted to move forward. In the end, she ordered both wallpapers, but the maze wallpaper will be installed in her dining room.

Laundry Room – Week 1 Progress

Our main goal for week 1 was to demo and prep the room for the wallpaper and beadboard. The first task at hand was removing the chair rail. We slid a small pry bar under the rail and gently pulled it away from the wall. Within a minute or two, the chair rail was down.

The trickier part of the demo was removing the peel and stick tiles Darla installed. As I mentioned last week, some were falling off the wall. That gave me a false sense of confidence. I thought, oh, I’ll just pull those babies right off. No harm to the wall. Easy Peasy.

Well, I was wrong in a big way! Some of the tiles, like the ones that kept falling off, were a piece of cake. But most of the other ones were, well, more difficult. We ended up using the mini pry bars on many of them to separate them from the wall and gently pull them off. About 50% of the tiles came off in pieces and around 75% damaged the drywall, usually just bubbling or pulling up the paper layer of the drywall.

The demoed room definitely did not look like much progress. With all the drywall damage, it was pretty ugly! We debated fixing the drywall but decided that it would ultimately be covered by beadboard and it didn’t make much sense. However, we offered to fix it in the future if Darla ever wanted to take down the beadboard.

The last task was to prep the walls for the wallpaper. Based on everything I read, I did not think we needed to prime the walls (the wallpaper directions never mentioned any type of primer). However, since this wallpaper is in the laundry room and it’s not my house, I decided that we’d prime the walls. Better safe than sorry!

We ended up using the Zinsser Shieldz Universal Wallpaper primer. We used a standard roller and nylon brush to apply it. The paint definitely felt sticky and had a slight odor (nothing too noxious). It only took ~30 minutes to complete the whole room.

---

Next week we’ll talk about wallpaper installation. And if you remember my wallpaper debacle from last spring, you may be wondering, did I order enough wallpaper? Will I ever learn from my mistakes? Come back next Thursday to find out!

Don’t forget to check out the other ORC designers and participants.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8

We’re back again. This time we’re renovating and designing a small laundry room!

It’s that time of year, another One-Room Challenge (aka ORC). The ORC is a biannual event that encourages bloggers/designers/Instagrammers to transform a space in a relatively short time frame (the current ORC is eight weeks long). For the spring ORC, we gutted and revamped our home office (you can see the result here).

This time, we’re doing something a little different. We’re renovating a space outside of our house and working with a “client.” Okay, that person is just my mother-in-law, Darla. Designing a room for (and really with) another person was a learning experience. It helped to refine my process! Darla was very easy to work with and made me feel comfortable during the process when I felt kind of silly, like when I requested “design meetings” and asked her tons of questions about her preferences. If you’re interested in hearing about this experience, let me know, and I’ll write a blog post about it.

The Laundry Room – Before Pictures & Background

Enough of the back story; let’s get to the fun design part. We are renovating my MIL’s laundry room. Darla lives in a new house that she and her late husband built a few years ago. They downsized from their large two-story family home to a modest-sized ranch when they became empty-nesters.

The house style is transitional. It has some traditional colonial elements with modern touches and an open floor plan. The house’s interior is neutral and bright.

The laundry room is a “pass-through.” The garage entrance is on one side of the room and a door to the main foyer of the house is on the other side. It’s a small room (approximately 6′ x 6′) with tall ceilings (9 feet high). There is laminate wood flooring throughout the house and it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen! The wood color is on the light side with a warm tone. The laminate is textured, so it has great dimension.

Darla wanted to jazz up the laundry room and applied peel and stick tiles to the wall about a year ago. However, no matter how she applied them, a couple kept falling off the wall. Finally, after getting frustrated with continuously re-attaching the tiles, she asked if we could install beadboard. That’s when I offered to design the room. Darla, being gracious and generous, agreed.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been refining and optimizing my design process. I’ve only used it for my projects, so this was an excellent opportunity to try it out with a “client.” I’ll take you through the different steps and how we designed the laundry room.

Step 1: Consider the Function

When designing a room, I always start with the function and ask myself the following questions:

• Who lives here?
• What activities happen in this room?
• What type of things need to be stored here?
• Are there any problems?
• What is working well in the room?

When going through these questions for Darla’s project, I made note of relevant information:

• Darla lives alone but has a dog and a cat. Both animals are older and less active, but prone to accidents at times. They have limited access to the laundry room as most times the door is closed.
• The main purpose of the room is laundry but it also serves as a thoroughfare from the garage to the rest of the house.
• This room stores laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, and overflow blankets. *Plenty of cabinet space.
• Darla is very organized and has routines for her household chores. Because of that, there really are no problems to solve here.
• The room is functioning great. No major changes to the lay out are needed. Her appliances are new and function great.

After reviewing the function, I listed the things I needed to keep in mind (based on the notes above) when designing the room:

• All elements need to be durable and wipeable.
• The wallpaper must hold up in warm temperatures and changing humidity.
• Organizational systems are not needed since things are running fine.
• The focus of the project is decorative.

Step 2: Outlining the Scope Of The Project

After determining the function and key takeaways from step 1, I started nailing down the full scope of the project. This included determining what stays in the room, what needs to be purchased, what labor is required, and the expected time frame.

I started Darla’s outline by listing the things that were staying:

• Wall Cabinets (white, great shape, brand new)
• Flooring (warm wood tone)
• Appliances (top load washing machine and dryer)
• Door hardware
• Baseboards & shoe molding

During this process, I also made a mental note of some things I knew about Darla which would impact the project. For example, Darla really likes cohesiveness. This means she’ll want to keep the trim, doors, and finishes consistent throughout the house (which she confirmed during our design meetings).

Darla is also pretty minimal with wall decor and doesn’t want to damage wallpaper by hanging pictures or accessories. The styling will therefore be minimal and non-invasive.

Based on this information, I made a list of the final elements that need to be purchased for the room:

• Beadboard
• Chair rail trim
• Wallpaper
• Cabinet Pulls
• Baskets
• Rug

I then listed the labor required to complete the project and I estimated the order of events. Since Jeremy and I are doing all the work, things are more flexible. However, if you are hiring contractors to do all or part of the work, this may be more strict.

• Demo: Remove wall tiles and current chair rail (Week 1)
• Prepping: Paint walls with wallpaper primer (Week 1)
• Wallpaper Installation: Use wallpaper kit (Week 2)
• Millwork: Install beadboard & chair rail trim (Week 3)
• Painting: Caulking, filling, sanding and painting (Darla has paint) (Week 4)
• Electrical: Install light fixture (Week 5)
• Finishing: Install cabinet pulls and accessories (rug/baskets) (Week 5)

As you can see, I’m estimating about five weeks of work. The one-room challenge is for eight weeks. I purposely wanted a project this fall that was easier and less time-consuming since it’s such a busy time of year for our family. I outlined some of this in my tips and tricks post that I wrote earlier this year.

Step 3: Create Three Concept Boards

After I had a general idea of what to include in the project, I created three concept boards. Each board had a different feeling and overall direction. I use a specific formula when putting together the concept boards. First, I always have seven pictures. By limiting the number of photos, it forces me to be picky about what images are included. This helps to define the direction of the plan.

Of the seven, two are “lifestyle” pictures. This is a pretty broad term, but the lifestyle images help to bring attention to something the person likes or values. The visual aesthetic of it matters, too – it should go along with the theme of the concept board.

It’s also essential to have at least one or two “detail” shots to highlight some of the key finishes or features that define that concept board. For example, the concept board below highlights brass accents and a capiz light.

When creating the concept boards, I don’t focus on the exact room. The images are taken from a wide variety of sources and room types. That’s why you see a sofa in the laundry room board above. I don’t plan on using a sofa or throw pillows in the laundry room. Still, the general finishes communicate the types of things that would go into the final design (i.e., floral patterns, traditional elements). The primary considerations are the overall feeling and the concept (which considers style, colors, finishes, etc.).

Step 4: Review Concept Boards & Create Your Final Board

After I had three concept boards, Darla and I met to review each option. I emphasized that she would never hurt my feelings and encouraged her to share her honest opinions. We started by looking at each of the boards and I asked Darla which one was her favorite. She liked concept #3 the best.

From there, I asked several questions:

• Is there anything you don’t like?
• What do you like about this?
• What type of finishes do you like?
• What type of textures do you like?
• Is there anything you would change?
• Should we mix and match any components from the other concept boards?

At that point, I felt pretty confident about what Darla wanted and liked. I recorded her answers and went to work sourcing the objects.

Step 5: Sourcing Options, Create Floor Plan and Elevations

With Darla’s feedback and the scope project details in hand, I began sourcing materials. For each item, I gathered at least 3-5 options, sometimes more. I approached this by collecting all the options I liked and that fit within the parameters of Darla’s preferences. From there, I whittled down the choices to a more reasonable number.

For example, I found over 15 wallpaper options (I actually rounded them up here!). However, that would be too overwhelming, so I narrowed it down to 6 and ordered samples.

After I had options for each category, I made the floor plan and created some basic elevations. There was very little space planning for this room since the layout was already in place (and there weren’t many other options!). In other rooms, like living rooms or bedrooms, space planning is more critical and more time-consuming. So, plan accordingly!

Step 6: Present Options & Finalize Choices

Darla and I met again at this point to review her options and to finalize her choices. Darla is very decisive and quickly identified what she liked in each category (light fixture, rug, wallpaper). We spent the most time talking about the wallpaper samples. If you’ve ever gotten samples, you know that the swatch may not show the most critical parts of the pattern. We also looked at each wallpaper option online to get a better feel of the scale and see the entire pattern. Our meeting was pretty short (maybe 20 minutes).

At this time, I also showed Darla a couple of elevations. I made these to visualize the wallpaper (and make sure I actually liked them before showing them to her). Darla found this helpful. (Spoiler: She liked another one of the wallpapers so much we’re installing it in her dining room later this year).

Step 7: Create Final Design Board & Detailed Budget

Creating the final design board was easy. I just pulled together all of Darla’s choices and updated the elevation to reflect the final design. These were put into a PDF document so we could quickly refer to it if needed.

At this time, I created a detailed budget for the project. I put together a spreadsheet that had the price, source, quantity, and a link to the item online. Then, I totaled the cost and sent that to Darla in an email.

Step 8: Final Approval & Ordering Materials

Darla and I met one last time. We reviewed her design choices once again and I made sure she was still happy with her decisions (she was). We also reviewed the budget, line by line. On that day, we ordered everything. Luckily, all the materials were received before the ORC started, so there should be no delays in our schedule this time!

---

Whew! All of those words and I haven’t shown the final design! Don’t worry – next week, I’ll review all of Darla’s choices and show the official plan for the room. I’ll also show you some progress that we’ve already made.

Don’t forget to check out the featured designers and guest participants on the ORC’s website.

---

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8