DIY Laundry Room Transformation - One Room Challenge Spring 2025
Yes, I’m spinning the block on another One Room Challenge! Did I fully finish the first one? No, but that’s my business as Tabitha Brown would say. But seriously, the updates we made to our living room during the Fall 2024 ORC have drastically transformed the space and given me the push to start decorating the rest of the house.
I have fully embraced my preference for slow design when it comes to my home. I like to live in it for a bit and allow the space to tell me what it needs through daily function vs filling an empty space, also read this as indecision. Exposure to so much design product and styles on the business side has me changing my mind on a regular basis. I am indeed my own worst client, but, alas, we are making changes.
What’s the One Room Challenge?
Started by Linda Weinstein in 2011, the ORC is a bi-annual event where interior designers, bloggers, and home decor enthusiasts take on the challenge of completely transforming one room in their home over eight weeks and sharing the process with a large community of design enthusiasts across social media. The main focus of the ORC is to be a celebration of creativity by providing community, motivation, inspiration, and helpful information to designers and DIYers across the globe.
Having one ORC under my belt that got us an Apartment Therapy feature, I’m feeling confident about the process of documenting and sharing the good, bad and ugly of my home design projects. This time around, we plan to be a lot more hands on vs hiring out. Well be DIYing the paint and wallpaper to save on costs while the electrical and cabinetry will be hired out.
How long is the One Room Challenge?
This season’s ORC runs from April 2nd through May 28th which is just after our one year new home anniversary. With exception to the living room, every room is a blank slate so there’s lots of work to be done. While we add finishing touches to the living room, the next space we’ll be updating is the laundry room.
Is the One Room Challenge a Competition?
While the ORC is not a competition (sorry, no winner at the end 😌) the digital reach of this challenge, with Apartment Therapy as the media partner, taps into the MILLIONS so it’s a resourceful (and free) way to potentially get my design project in front of a massive audience. The event also partners with several furniture and decor companies for product sponsorship.
Decurated Interiors is in it’s blooming season and anywhere there’s potential for free product in exchange for content collaboration and press features in top industry publications like Domino, House Beautiful, Real Simple and the likes…sign us up!
Week 1
Let’s assess the current state of the space:
small 5 x 6 space
no storage or shelves
white textured walls
gray tile
Before
Challenges
The most obvious challenge with our laundry room is the lack of storage and shelving. It’s the least functional room in the house. There is no space for laundry baskets and no shelving for all of our laundry items. The space is dull and uninspiring and while we’re grateful to have a separate space to get this chore done, we’d love for it to have color and function.
Design Direction
We’ll be working with our existing washer and dryer as they’re pretty new. To bring this space to it’s fullest potential, we’ll be adding:
a wall mount cabinet for storage
a laundry sorter
statement wallpaper & coordinating paint color
decorative lighting and hardware
a rug for a spot of comfort
Sprucing this space up may make us enjoy doing laundry. Maybe? The goal with this color, pattern and texture palette is approachable luxe, interesting shapes and fun function. Check out this week’s IG posts here and here.
Week 2
I started week 2 by creating a space plan in Design Files, specifically confirming the sizes of cabinet, laundry sorter, light fixture and rug. The space is almost a perfect square which made sourcing pretty simple. Details are in this video I shared on IG.
We kept our existing washer and dryer and chose a shaker style kitchen cabinet from Home Depot to store all of our products and fixtures. I found an aesthetically pleasing laundry sorter from Wayfair which seems like an area of opportunity in the home space — cute laundry fixtures. We needed something with a narrow profile as to not take up a lot of space and a decent height to keep up from reaching to low to grab clothes to wash.
For the rug, a 3x5 would be the maximum size for the small open floor area. I may even have to consider two 2x3s side by side as 5ft would be touching the baseboards and front of the machines.
In addition to the statement wallpaper, the swan wall art from Society 6 will provide us with another focal point, one that emphasizes transformation which is exactly what this space embodies.
The current overhead light is a basic recessed fixture so I chose the 13” Dahlia light by Alora Lighting, on ORC sponsor, to jazz things up a bit. I think the oil rubbed bronze finish will nicely complement the browns thorughout the space while still giving a nice contrast to the tan paint and white fixtures.
Top Down View: Laundry Room Layout
Week 3
I reached out to Walls Republic for sponsorship of the wallpaper for my laundry room makeover, and they said yes! I was introduced to the brand by way of Instagram and my oh my is this pattern stunning! The texture was also a nice surprise.
After seeing the tones of the wallpaper in person, I immediately questioned my paint color choice. Online, the gray tone in the paper looked to have a slightly blue tint so I chose a gray paint with a similar. This is why we order samples or wait to finalize the paint color because colors on screen can vary greatly in person. Thankfully, I hadn’t ordered any paint yet and I was just going by swatches.
With that said, I decided to nix the gray and go with a tan. Then the question became, do I go warm or cool?
I narrowed down my options to SW Latte (cool) and SW Canoe (warm). Samples coming right up!
Week 4
We are halfway through the challenge and this is the week of pivots, honey! I was notified by Alora that the bronze Dahlia light fixture is out of stock and I need to reselect.
I had three options: 1) wait an indefinite amount of time for a restock 2) keep the Dahlia but choose a different finish or 3) pick a different fixture altogether. I loved the look of my original choice so I decided to go with an antique brass finish instead. Problem solved, right? WRONG.
The light changing from a deep bronze to brass snowballed into more design changes needing to made as the element of contrast got lost in the switch. The gold metal of the light against the tan paint and and rusty tan wall art and wallpaper was feeling a bit too monochrome for my liking which wasn’t my original design intent.
First things first, I painted swatches of my top two color choices to get that finalized and the obvious choice for me was Canoe (left). The warmth of complemented the wallpaper the best. Now, on to everything else.
Being the visual person that I am, I couldn’t make design changes without a visual so I updated my concept boards to compare. Left side is the original and right side is updated. Of course, I posted about it on my IG. I needed everyone to see pivots are most certainly a part of the design process.
As you can see, the shift in paint color makes a major difference in the feel of the wallpaper as does the light fixture. I felt the original art color was too orangey with the paint and wallpaper so I kept the same print, but opted for a walnut frame and gray background instead of white. Small, but impactful details.
Week 5
The Dahlia light fixture delivered this week which means we’re another step closer to completing this puzzle. Thanks to ORC sponsor, Alora Lighting, for this generous gift. It’s absolutely gorgeous! Check my IG post below to see the details on her. We’ll be hiring an electrician to handle the install it for us.
Week 6
It feels like I blinked and week 6 was knocking at my door. Between the frenzy of news cycles and never ending to do lists, week 6 was full of procrastination or creative avoidance as my former supervisor would call it. I didn’t paint. I didn’t find an electrician. I didn’t order the decorative items or wallpaper supplies. We just let it be for a while until I found the creative spark again. Or course, I made a reel about it.
Week 7
I caught up with a friend and former participant in the ORC and she gave me the push I needed to get things going again. One week out from the deadline, and the laundry room was still leaving lots to the imagination. The to-do list? Prepping the walls for paint and wallpaper, getting the light fixture and cabinet installed and ordering the laundry sorter, wall art, hang bar, rug and other small decorative items. Whew!
So, this week I finally went back to Sherwin Williams, grabbed the paint and supplies and went to work.
I diy’d the paint since this was such a small space; however, it still gave me a run for my money. We weren’t completely comfortable detaching and moving the appliances out of the room so we decided to work around them which presented many challenges with getting into corners and such. Painting the ceiling was probably the easiest part. I think I will leave this to the pros next time.
Next up? Wallpaper.
As the paint dried, I measured out the length of the paper and matched up the pattern repeat. This is traditional wallpaper, by the way, not peel and stick — another first for me.
The Walls Republic wallpaper came with detailed instructions and in multiple languages might I add. My designer friends advised me to leave extra and the top and bottom for mishaps so that I did. Our walls are just over 9 feet tall so I measured each panel at about 10 feet long. The wall being wallpapered is only about 6 feet wide so four panels should cover the area. I ordered three rolls with each one covering 30 square feet. This layout was one full roll and a third of a second roll.
Did I mention our walls are orange peel textured? This added another prep step to the process which was measuring out wall liner. I was advised by a pro to line the walls so that the wallpaper would have a smoothish surface to adhere to. Otherwise, it would curl up and peel right off so I followed the directions I was given.
Here’s a lineup of the primer, wall liner and paste I used to ensure the best wallpaper application and adhesion. The primer was applied to bare walls to act as a barrier between the drywall and liner. It’s supposed to make for easier wallpaper removal down the line so I’ll update y’all when it’s time to switch the look up.
Week 8 & Beyond
It’s the last official week of the One Room Challenge and while I’m still making updates, plenty of the participants have completed their spaces. I encourage you to check out their projects and follow along their journeys.
You may even get inspired to register yourself for the next ORC 👀. Fall 2025 will be here before you know it. Why not work on that space you’ve been putting off for the past couple of years and get some free product in the process?
Here’s where things stand with our laundry room: the wallpaper is up, light fixture installed and cabinet mounted. The wall art and rug are on order and and I’ll be taking a trip to Home Goods to finalize the styling details.
Reveal
The laundry room is complete and I’ve never been so eager to organize a cabinet and wash a load of clothes lol. We now have the space we need to store things we use on a weekly basis. We can also hang dry delicates, pre-sort the laundry by color and use the foldable laundry basket to gather our clothes into the living room for folding then hang right back on the wall when we’re done. This door stays open so our guests can see that even utilitarian spaces like laundry rooms deserve a glow up that works for your family. In all, we spent about $2000 for this makeover. See the full budget breakdown on my Instagram.
