It’s Room Reveal Day! Crazy to think that I haven’t had one of these in seven months… how time flies.
This is one of those areas that became something from nothing. Once an ignored, barely functional pass through space that just needed a bit of planning and a small budget. Today it has been transformed into a functional entryway with plenty of storage—a feature that’s impossible not to notice as you walk by.
Phase 1: That 70’s laundry room
I don’t think it even qualified as a room, but rather an empty wall between two doors for laundry machines. It sucked.
In fact, it was so cramped that we built a fancy new laundry room downstairs and this space became an oversight—a junk storage closet.
Something had to be done in there before putting the house on the market, so I thought about what the best use of space would be without spending a fortune. The back door leads to the garage which I enter the house from 99% of the time, so I figured a drop zone would be a nice addition, and extra cabinet storage never hurts. The future homeowners may not have a need for a full on studio/office the way I currently have it set up, so I also decided to build a desk nook as a secondary workspace option.
After removing the door to the hallway and retrimming the opening, the garage door was updated with DIY trim and painted with Valspar’s Dark Kettle Black. The walls got a couple coats of Gray Silt, while an Ikea trip resulted in perfectly sized Sektion cabinets and a butcher block to serve as a desktop.
A DIY fabric wrapped cork board was installed for the backsplash while the floor was tiled in charcoal porcelain:
Last week I added a beadboard wall, new baseboard trim and coat hooks for extra storage…
And the past few days have been spent on the finishing touches & staging—always the best part!
Without further delay… here’s the final result of the past four weeks:
Doesn’t even look like the same space, right?!
Nothing like a black door to add a touch of sophistication.
These glass paneled doors were my third choice (the first two styles were sold out) but it was one of those happy mistakes, because they definitely look more high end and make the room appear larger. And the shelves were fun to decorate!
I picked up these 8×10″ frames for 50 cents each at the flea market last week, spray painted them black and popped a couple of my botanical prints in.
Love this chair.
These are old Nyttja frames with instagram pics from Ikea (no longer available it seems, boo!) that I pulled from storage:
The hooks are my go-to $1.75 cheapies from Lowe’s.
At the last minute I decided a key hanger was necessary but I didn’t want to change out of my pajamas to drive to Lowe’s, so I dug around the garage and found a scrap of old wood, some metal numbers and hooks and made this in a few minutes:
I bought these brass numbers on Ebay last year for a project but ended up not using them, so after spray painting them black and screwing the board onto the wall, I used hot glue to adhere the numbers to the wood (which is a 6″ lumber yard find that I cut to 20″ tall and sanded). Then I twisted the hooks in by hand and voila… free & functional decor:
One room down… just a few more to go!
Now for the budget breakdown and source list. Luckily I kept track of everything this time around.
Cabinets: IKEA Sektion Bodybn off-white, upper & lower
Cabinet knobs: Ebay
Butcher block: IKEA Karlby
Chair: IKEA Gamleby
Floor tile: Lowe’s
Wall hooks: Lowe’s
Wall Paint: Valspar Gray Silt
Door Paint: Valspar Dark Kettle Black
Picture frames: Ikea Nyttja, flea market
Pillow: H&M
Cabinet & Desk boxes/decor: Ikea, Hobby Lobby, Target
Budget breakdown:
IKEA: $1005
Beadboard, baseboard & trim: $90
Floor tile: $90
New switches/outlets: $30
Labor: $555
Fortunately I had the paint and decorations on hand already!
Total: $1770
So worth it, right? Especially considering I’ll easily see triple, if not quadruple my return when the house sells. It feels great to finally cross something off the list! Now my attention turns back to the master bathroom, along with figuring out a plan to stage the guest room and downstairs.
What do you think of the space? For those of you stuck on what to do with a small space, hopefully this provides some inspiration on ways to make the most out of it!
See you back here next week for the next vlog, and in the meantime feel free to reach out on instagram, snapchat (@ jennasuedesign), facebook & Youtube, or follow my ongoing inspiration on Pinterest. Hope your weekend is warm and relaxing!
Karina says
Just beautiful! You have such an eye for design. Wish I had that. I’m building a house and using that very tile for the laundry room. Do you happen to remember what color grout you used? It seems like the perfect contrasting color.
jennasuedesign says
Thanks Karina! Not sure on the grout color unfortunately, I just had my installer pick the closest match to the tile. Hope this helps!
Valerie says
A wonderful space. Love it and a perfect drop zone.
Danielle says
This is just beautiful! I love how bright and open it looks 🙂 such a big impact!
Ginny says
Looks great, but I’m not surprised!! You have great taste! Love it all, but especially the place for keys!! 🙂
Kira K. says
I absolutely love all of your designs and this space looks fabulous!!!
Shauna says
As always, very tastefully done, balanced in the proportions and the colours. Thanks for sharing!
jaime says
Your talent never fails to impress. You have created a wonderful and functional space that will undoubtedly see much use.
Meg - Life of Meg says
Wow!~ Incredible re-do! I’m inspired and ready to tackle our small spaces now!
Dani says
Wow, that was a lot of auto corrects! Hi, first of all. Secon, we have a *nook
Dani says
How! Love it. We have a book in our home we our building for an office space, and I wanted to do the butcher block as the desk for it. Are you able to cut the butcher block to the exact length, or did it just work for yours that it fit perfect? Thanks!
jennasuedesign says
Thanks Dani! I had my carpenter cut it to fit 🙂
kate says
Looks great and so functional!! Curious if you have tried spacing the shelves so they lined up with the window mullions on the doors. It could give it a cleaner look.
jennasuedesign says
Smart idea, Kate!
Anu says
Beautifully done! I was wondering if there was an outlet near the desk. I could see someone placing a charging station there near the keys.
jennasuedesign says
Thank you! And yes, it’s on the bulletin board wall hiding under a print 🙂
Linda Grubbs says
You did it again!!! Took a not so perfect space and turned it into a beautiful “gee, I wanna spend time in there” kind of space!! Time well spent Jenna!!!
Jenna says
Looks great, Jenna!
Kirsten says
Absolutely gorgeous space!