Jonesing for a Project

It was bad.  I was jittery and jumpy.  It was August and I needed a project!  I knew it couldn't be a big project because we were crazy busy that summer, but it had to be a meaty project.  I had recently stumbled across this tutorial on a faux board and batten treatment at It's the Little Things that Make a House a Home and I loved it.  I really wanted to do it in one of the main floor rooms, but felt that was too much of an undertaking for my limited timeframe.  Then I remember the smallest room in our house: our itty-bitty laundry room.  What a perfect place to try this out.  If I loved it, I'd have a very pretty laundry room and, if I didn't?  Well, it's the laundry room and it's upstairs.  No harm, no foul.

Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures, but I'm sure you can imagine it.  Just shrink down whatever you're imagining and make it half the size.  Seriously.  There is no extra floor space in our laundry room.  Not even enough for a cat box!

Once I had my plan, I dragged my family to the home improvement store to get the trim. (I don't know why, but we always seem to go there as a family.  I'm sure our kids will thank us for it eventually.)  Then my husband and I got to work cutting down pieces.

I do need to insert a word of thanks to my guy here.  I'm sure I told him that he wouldn't need to do anything on this project.  That I'd do it all myself.  But somehow, when the day arrived, there he was helping me cut down the trim and hammer it to the wall.  What a guy.

A can of blue paint, a can of white paint, and a fair bit of elbow grease and here's our laundry room now:

The pictures are all of clothes pins that I found on a free stock photo site (I think it was EveryStockPhoto).  I just printed them out, taped them to some white card stock and shoved them into the frames.  I was thinking they would probably be temporary, but I actually like them quite a bit:

We took off the door, since it was never closed and it really helps open up the space.  Of course, our garage is another project that I have yet to tackle, so after several months, this is still what the hallway outside the laundry room looks like:

ahem.

If this were a room I used more, I'd probably paint the cabinets white and maybe even spray paint the washer and dryer, but it's my laundry room and I'm liking it just fine.