Laundry Room Mini Makeover

The boxes are all unpacked and the dust has settled (mostly). And I have a blank canvas for a house. What to do? What to do! So far, the only rooms I have a clear vision for are the master bedroom and the laundry room. The master is going to wait til after Christmas as I'm hoping to receive some particular linens as gifts... (cough! cough! hint hint!)

The laundry room was easy. Just needed a quick little painterooo to make it pretty.

Before:

The two white bars are where the existing shelves were hung.

The wall color is actually really pretty: it's Valspar's "Boston Cream"

J helped me remove the existing wooden shelves, I then took them into the garage and prepped them for painting. When painting/refinishing wood, you can't scrimp on the prep work. It's a lot like painting your nails: remove old polish, wash polish remover off, base coat, color, top coat, Voila! 

The shelves got sanded with 150 grit sandpaper to get off the old sealer and sand out any imperfections in the wood. I then followed up with 220 grit sandpaper to really prep the surface for paint. After sanding, I used our ShopVac to vacuum away major dust and followed up with a damp cloth (tack-cloth also works well). If you don't get the dust completely off, the paint will stick to that and flake off over time.

The shelf on the left is sanded, the one on the right is still shiny with varnish.

Time to prime! I used Rust-Oleum "Painter's Touch" Primer in gray. The trick to spray painting is to do many light, even coats. At first, it will look awful, but after about 3 coats your project will be amazing and there will be no paint runs. You can apply each new coat after 15-30 minutes of dry time for the previous coat.

Once your primed coats are dry, you can paint your desired color on. I chose Rust-Oleum's Painters "Touch" Gloss in Purple. Once again, many light even coats, always keep your spray can moving.

The color turned out so pretty!

I opted to not use a clear varnish/lacquer type top-coat because my paint is very glossy and these shelves are fairly light-duty use and don't get wet. 

I also had this bathroom shelf from IKEA that I painted the same purple and Hubs installed. It now holds our keys, my purse, J's wallet, and our cell phones. It's SO NICE to have all that stuff in one place.

The finished product! The lighting was poor, but you get the idea. My next additions will be a purple valence for the window and hopefully a fun little chandelier!