We poured so much time, effort and love into building our home over the past few years and even though I’m not even close to an interior designer or an expert in the “home” space, it’s something that brought me a lot of joy. While it feels out of my wheelhouse and comfort zone to share this kind of content on my blog, since quite a few of you seem interested in a non-interior designer’s home tour, I figured why not!? And if it doesn’t interest you, please skip over this post!
We still don’t have every room in our home complete and I think we’ve hung all of three pictures on our walls so this may be the slowest home tour in all the land. But since I’m not exactly a “Type A” person or a perfectionist in my real life, “good enough” is good enough for me for this home tour. We’ll still be changing some things, hanging some things, adding some things and swapping out some things but isn’t every home a never-ending work in progress anyway?
With all of that being said, it’s time to dive into the first room of our home tour: Our laundry room!
Our Laundry Room
This may seem like an odd place to begin but it’s one of my absolute favorite rooms in our house and it’s also the room that was pretty much done once the wallpaper went up after we moved in.
Our laundry room in our old home was more or less a laundry closet so Ryan and I were especially grateful to be able to put more thought into “secondary spaces” in our new home. We put a lot of time into designing our pantry, mudroom and laundry room because they were three things we didn’t have before that we thought would help our overall home organization with three boys in the mix.
Overall, I wanted our laundry room to feel like an escape. As a mom of three boys, I was also a little over designing neutral or semi-masculine spaces so I made the laundry room one of the more feminine spaces in our home. My hope was for our laundry room to have lots of natural light and floral elements and also be functional for our family. Three of our family members loving nothing more than playing outside in the dirt and mud which means we do a lot of laundry in our house. Having a place where we can sort and fold our laundry that wasn’t our kitchen table was also high on my wish list.
Our countertops are a simple white quartz which is durable, bright and easily wipes clean.
One of the more “extra” things we did in our laundry room was add in a dog bath.
Pinterest inspired this idea because we are a dog-loving family and knew we’d not only use a dog bath to wash our dog but also would use the space for soaking, cleaning and stain-treating larger laundry items like comforters, couch slipcovers, sneakers, blankets and more.
And while we’re on the topic of dog-friendly laundry room spaces, another thing we added into our laundry room cabinetry was a pull-out dog food bin. I majorly geek out over stuff like this so I had to highlight this, too!
Our cabinets are painted Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter, a color I loved even more in person than when I saw the paint samples. It’s honestly a color I wish I would’ve used in more places because it’s so gorgeous and neutral without being too white, too gray, too green or too beige.
I also opted to mix and match hardware colors and paired a brushed nickel faucet and dog wash shower with polished brass cabinet pulls and latches and for a little variety.
(Our exact faucet is discontinued but this one is nearly identical.)
One thing I didn’t anticipate through the homebuilding process was how many decisions go into selecting tile. Phew! Tile is one area that stressed me out a lot because I have zero experience in this area and didn’t realize you aren’t just picking out a single tile when you design a laundry room or bathroom but you’re also choosing grout color, caulk color, trim tile color, floor tile, bath/shower floor tile, wall tile, etc. There was a definitely learning curve for me in this area!
(That wooden step stool was my grandma Mimi’s and I love it so much.)
For our laundry room, I loved the look of checkerboard tile on the floor or terrazzo floor tile but those were two design decisions Ryan couldn’t get behind. He never flat out said no and trusted me to make 99 percent of our interior home decisions which was wonderful but I could also tell he wasn’t feeling those tile ideas for the laundry room. Since he rarely had a negative opinion about the selections I was considering, I figured I should pivot on this one a bit and ended up going with a slate gray hexagon tile that had a little veining in it for some interest.
I ended up loving the contrast of a deeper color floor tile with the lighter cabinets and wallpaper and our laundry room flooring is one of my favorites in our home!
Another thing I love in our laundry room that’s rather random is this wall-mounted hanging garment rack I found through Anthropologie.
I looked for something like this online for waaay too long (and even ordered one I returned because the finish looked awful in person) but this hanging bar is both beautiful and functional. We use it all the time!
As for our laundry room backsplash, I told our builder I wasn’t feeling a traditional tile backsplash. Truthfully, I cannot stand a lot of grout in a backsplash because, while I loved the update we did to the backsplash in our former kitchen, I could not stand cleaning a lot of grout in a backsplash. We went with a slab backsplash in our new kitchen for this very reason but in our laundry room, we opted for a plaster-inspired backsplash.
I wanted something that would add an earthier, slightly more rustic element to this space and love the way it turned out. Plus, it tones down the walls opposite the busy, floral wallpaper we selected for all of the other walls in this space.
The wallpaper in our laundry room tugged on my heartstrings because it so closely mirrors the wallpaper my grandma Mimi had in her guest room in her home in Gettysburg. I remember thinking this room was so beautifully playful and could not wait to use something similar in our home. I figured if it was a wallpaper I loved when I was 12 years old that I still love now that I’m 38 years old, the chances are high I will not get sick of it anytime soon!
When I saw this wallpaper on Anthrpologie’s website, I was instantly sold and built the colors in our laundry room tile and cabinet selections around it.
Aaand I think that wraps up the first room in our home tour! It may be another six months until I get around sharing another one of these but hopefully this was at least semi-interesting for those of you who requested a more detailed glimpse into our home.
Thank you for coming along for the ride!
Laundry Room Selections
Below you will find a quick a summary of our laundry room selections! If I missed anything you’d like me to share more information about related to our laundry room, please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer any questions in the comments section of this post.
- Wallpaper: Anthropologie
- Countertops: White Quartz
- Sconces: Delancy Wall Sconce (We liked these so much we used them in our kitchen, too!)
- Floor tile: Pulpis Dark Grey Hex Porcelain Tile
- Dog Bath Tile: Retro Perla Ceramic Subway Tile
- Faucet: Kingston Brass (discontinued) but this one is nearly identical
- Cabinet Hardware: Emtek Egg Knobs + Latches
- Hanging Garment Rack: Anthropologie
- Black Swivel Clock: Target
- Mini Lamp: Target
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I gotta ask – how much time do you dedicate to cleaning your home? Do the boys help? Do you have a housekeeper? Your home looks so big and beautiful! I am a dedicated clean freak and spend hours a day cleaning and can barely keep up with one 3 year old 🙂 What’s the SQFT of your home? We want to build in a few years and love seeing how people handle having a clean home thats not super small.
Hi ~ I don’t have kids and it’s just me at my home. I saw a gal on TT that sets her phone for 30-45 minutes after she gets home from work to do a reset of her home. She gets her coffee ready for the next day, lunch for next day, runs the vacuum, picks up, etc. I set my reminder on my phone to do that and it has helped keep my home picked up and cleaner. 🙂
Hi Cori!! We’ve never had a housekeeper until a couple of months ago. We just hired someone to come for a couple hours every 4-6 weeks to focus primarily on bathrooms, the kitchen and floors and it’s been incredibly helpful. On a day-to-day basis, I definitely find myself cleaning a lot but not to the point that it takes over. I am also admittedly not someone who needs a spotless home but please know I certainly straightened up and cleaned before snapping these pics!!! Also, there’s hope — babies + toddlers make it much harder to have a clean home than bigger kids. Now Chase and Ryder know they have to help clean up (Rhett is learning) and I promise it gets easier!
So lovely! The wallpaper is exquisite!
Love this! Do you walk into your laundry room from the garage? Or is there a different room for that? We have our laundry/mud room all together and that’s the first room people walk in to coming in from the garage. It needs a major update! Thank you for sharing!
Our laundry room has two entrances — one from our bedroom closet (this was our architect’s idea and so, so smart!!!) and one from the side hallway close to the stairs. We don’t have a mudroom we can close off but we do have a mudroom hallway with lockers for jackets, bags, shoes, etc.
So pretty!! Love the wallpaper. I really enjoy these kinds of posts.
LOVE IT Julie! Been anxiously waiting for these posts! I love how you picked this decor for a more feminine room, which you deserve, being surrounded by boys! Can’t wait to see the rest of the house. Your new house is what my dreams are made of <3
I told Ryan the laundry room was going to be my flowery, feminine room and he was all for it! He actually said it ended up being one of his favorite rooms in the house, too!!
Julie, this is so beautiful! The details highlight the love that was put into the home. I’m so excited to see the other rooms and already taking inspiration from you for our “forever home”. I know you said you aren’t an interior designer but I think you would make an amazing one!
Thank you, Leah!!! I learned so much as we built and felt so grateful to be able to do this — it’s been a huge blessing and I appreciate your kind words so much!
I know I’m officially “old” because I was so excited to see this post! I LOVE your laundry room because we basically have a laundry closet right now also. I will live through your beautiful designs and space- Keep the home tour coming!
I absolutely love that doggie bath! Pepper looks adorable in it and I know you did not even dream of having such a cutie teenie doggie when you were planning it!! So perfect tho!! 🥰
You’re absolutely right about that!! We started the planning when we had Sadie and definitely did not imagine a little 7-pound pup in there!
Thank you Breanna!! Really appreciate your kind words! And I swear once I entered my mid-30s I began sooooaking up home content!
It looks wonderful! I would love to see your house plans/layout more than anything to picture the flow of it all. Y’all did any amazing job!
Love these types of posts and hearing the thought process behind decisions! Also, the special little nods to your Mimi are so sweet! Her sugar cookie recipe is my son’s favorite!!
Aw I love to hear this so, so much!!! I’m so glad he loves her cookies!
Beautiful ~ love the wall paper.
Thank you!!! I just love how similar it is to the one in my grandma’s old home so much!
gorgeous! what do you keep in all those cabinets? Is this also the mud room or do you have a whole separate mud room? My laundry machines are stacked in a closet and the only other things in there are like, a jug of detergent lol so I’m curious what else you have in this storage space! looks really nice.
We have a mudroom hallway with lockers for the boys! The laundry room is for laundry but also functions as whole-house storage — spare light bulbs, paper towels we buy in bulk, pet supplies (for Lucky and Pepper), cleaning supplies, some craft supplies, etc. The upper cabinets are currently empty though!
It is so, so beautiful! I’ve been hoping you would share more of your new home. It is absolutely beautiful and 100% looks designed by a professional! How did you most of your inspiration?
I love these types of posts! Look forward to seeing the rest of the house.
Julie – Your house is so beautiful. I can only dream about a laundry room that you have. When you are ready to show, would love to see the rest of the rooms of your home
Absolutely stunning! I love the wallpaper so much! I am the queen of my house too (lol) living with my husband and our two sons (even our cat is a male!) and there are many feminine touches all over our house. My husband gets to decorate his office and man cave however he wants! (And my older son decorates his room however he wants of course! Thankfully my younger son is happy still having his nursery decor that I chose…even though he is Chase’s age!) But they are all very good sports about me making any other part of the house as pretty as I want!
I am so, so excited for upcoming house tour posts! Anytime you post a picture that shows your gorgeous views of the lake, I get so excited! I cannot wait to see a post of all the views at once!!
It’s beautiful!
This is lovely! As someone who has only ever had a laundry room “closet” myself, this is quite a luxury. Is it sad that someone can swoon so much over a laundry room? And, that dog bath!! Nice touch!
Who installed the wallpaper?!