My DIY coastal laundry room makeover is finally done! I am SO excited to share it all with you, including how I changed the cabinets from black to light blue, updated the space with brass accents and added a DIY countertop!

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DIY Coastal Laundry Room Makeover Before

You might have been around here when I wrote a post on my coastal laundry room makeover plans several months ago. Well, now it’s done and I’m so excited to share the results!

When we moved in, we had it painted a khaki-ish brown color and kept the black cabinets. {You can see all of our before and afters in my Our House – Then & Now post here.} We also had some lockers/cubbies built into a small space across from our washer and dryer. We hadn’t previously had any space for coats and hats, etc. so this worked decently well for a few years.


Once we remodeled our kitchen and added in pantry cabinets, we were able to turn our old walk in pantry into a mudroom and free up some space again in the laundry room. During quarantine, I decided to tackle this DIY coastal laundry room makeover as cheaply as possible and recruited my husband to help me.

The first step was to remove the cubbies. Thankfully, they came down easily, but left a lot of damage to the wall. My husband was able to patch it up pretty quickly so it would be ready for painting. Painting the entire room with a fresh coat of white paint made a HUGE difference in the space. It always amazes me what white paint can do! {See all of the coastal paint colors I’ve used in my home here!}


As you can see in the previous photo, we have a 7 inch tube that had to be installed as part of our kitchen remodel. We didn’t particularly want to go through the process of boxing it in, so I just painted it white! It’s obviously still visible but it blends in enough that it doesn’t bother me.

Painting the Cabinets

The next step of my DIY coastal laundry room makeover was to paint the cabinets. I chose Benjamin Moore Polaris Blue for the color and it turned out just perfect! I just simply cleaned them with TSP, primed them with the Gardz Surface Sealer and then primed them again with Kilz stain blocker. Then I painted them with a higher end self-leveling paint that I was able to get from a paint store via Amazon.

I wanted to get rid of as much of the grain on the cabinets as possible but I really didn’t want to go through the trouble of using grain filler and sanding, etc. I know the surface sealer isn’t a usual step that people probably use but I was winging this DIY in the middle of a pandemic. LOL! I had to make due with what I had on hand. Honestly, if I had been painting something like kitchen or bathroom cabinets, I would have taken more time in doing the proper steps. But this worked fine for my DIY laundry room makeover project!

DIY Countertop

The next item on our list was building a countertop. We realized when my husband pulled the cubbies down that it was already done for us! We just used the base of the cubbies and raised it up to countertop height. Then we added a sheet of plywood on top and a 5″ piece on the front to make it look like a thick countertop. It was so easy! The only regret I have is that I didn’t realize that the piece of plywood we had was premium and I would have been able to stain it. Unfortunately, the only piece I had for the front panel was already primed white. But, I came up with a great workaround – contact paper! My daughter helped me apply it and it probably only took us about 20 minutes to do it.
I also hung a tension rod to hang clothes but it immediately fell so I definitely knew that I needed something stronger. I was so excited when I finally found the perfect solution!

DIY Laundry Room Makeover After

Can you believe it? I am sooooooo happy with how it all turned out. Light blue cabinets were always my dream and it was totally worth the effort it took to do them! We built a small shelf next to the cabinets and painted it to match and had a new faucet installed. I also covered the small countertop with the same contact paper.  I absolutely love it all!

Paint | Brass Frame | Pot | Faucet | Brass Knobs | Contact Paper

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Looking into the room, you can see that I also grabbed a striped coastal jute rug to break up some of the flooring. I looked into a lot of different options for the floor (paint, peel and stick tiles, etc.) because I *really* don’t like it but in the end, I just decided to cover as much of it up with a rug as I could.

Looking in the opposite direction towards the door, you can also see we replaced the awesome, builder grade boob lights that were previously there with these simple brass globe flush mounts. These are a SUPER affordable option!

And last, the view of our DIY countertop and brass drying rod! The drying rod was purchased through a specialty company because I needed a custome size but it’s also available from Home Depot and it is SO sturdy. It was a perfect choice and I love having a place to hang our clothes to dry! I use the baskets underneath the counter to hold dirty clothes, towels, etc.
 

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So, what do you think of our DIY laundry room makeover? I hope you love it as much as I do!