$300 DIY Laundry Room Makeover: Step-by-Step Guide

Your laundry isn't a place that you like to spend a lot of time. In fact, it's probably the most forgotten part of your home.

Hi, I'm Jade. I’m here to help with all things DIY and helping you create a house and home you love.  I am going to be taking this laundry and giving it a DIY budget makeover to give it a little bit more glam and pizazz. So let's dive in.

This is what I'm working with before. And while there's absolutely nothing wrong with the laundry the way that it is, I would like it to just have a little bit more of a wow factor. So I'm going to be giving it a little bit of a makeover. I've set myself a budget of $300 for this glow-up. I have in my head what I want it to look like and I'm so excited to see it all come together.

Before we dive into the makeover please see below a list of all the products and tools I used in this makeover.

• Wash & Wear Interior Paint Monument - https://rb.gy/7i5p46

• British Paints Slender Pine - https://www.bunnings.com.au/british-paints-1l-white-low-sheen-clean-and-protect-interior-paint_p0561950

• Powder Coated Black Rod - https://tinyurl.com/2f2yrxzy

• Powder Coated Rod End Fitting - https://tinyurl.com/3ybfpev3

• Lining Panel Plywood V Grooved - https://tinyurl.com/3ybfpev3

• 90mm Premium Pine Boards - https://tinyurl.com/dd4nreva

• Pine Angle Shelf Brackets - https://tinyurl.com/4n39yt5r

• Timber & Decking Stain For Shelf - https://tinyurl.com/yc7n4u8x

• Microfibres Cloths - https://amzn.to/3X5gdrN

• Wood Stain Paint Brush - https://amzn.to/4c7WIDt

• Liquid Nails - https://amzn.to/3Rb7CQC

• Epoxy Glue - https://amzn.to/4aHIacw

• The Pink Stuff Cleaning Paste - https://amzn.to/4c2fwUw

• Krud Kutter - https://amzn.to/4c050Nm

• Ryobi 18V Mitre Saw - https://amzn.to/3X7QKOE

• Ryobi 18V Orbital Sander - https://amzn.to/4bMHdRu

• Ryobi 18V Drill - https://amzn.to/4e6skuU

I needed to remove the old pictures that I had up on the wall. I had anchors and screws that I needed to remove that I had previously installed to hold these pictures up. They were very light and I probably didn't need the anchors. However, I've installed the anchors and I wanted to remove those before applying them.

Next up, I went out into the garage and I started to apply a timber stain and glaze onto these boards which I'm going to be using as shelves on my feature wall. These are just dressed pine boards that I purchased from Bunnings, but you can purchase these from any hardware store and then you're going to apply the stain to make the timber whatever colour it is that you would like it to be before applying it to your wall, just because this is going to be a little bit easier. I applied the stain to these boards really early on in this makeover because I'm wanting to apply an oil-based top coat onto these boards before I put them in the laundry. The oil-based top coat that I'm going to be using requires 24 hours to dry in between each coat and I just wanted to make sure that I was going to have enough time for that to dry effectively before I install the boards in the laundry.

I decided that I wanted to apply the same stain onto the actual brackets that I'm going to be using to hold these shelves up. These brackets make it super easy to install your own shelves rather than making them floating shelves and I'm applying this same timber stain onto these. You just use a paintbrush to apply the stain onto the boards and then use a rag to wipe off any excess. You want to make sure that it's not too thick and depending on the type of timber that you're using, you may need to use a wood conditioner first before you apply the stain so that it soaks in evenly.

Now, this next step was something that I needed to do, but you may not need to do it if you're not a heavy DIY-er like me. I tend to wash out all my paintbrushes in my laundry sink and yes, there's probably a better place to wash them out, but this is definitely where I do it for ease of convenience, especially when it's cold and I don't want to be washing my paintbrushes outside. So I got the Pink Stuff Miracle Cleaning Paste and also my Krud Kutter and I really scrubbed away to remove all of the paint from the sink and make it look sparkling clean.

Before painting any space, you want to clean the space. First off, you're going to need to remove all of the spiders and cobwebs and then once you've done that, you want to go along and give the walls a little bit of a clean to remove any dust, grime, or residue on them. Once my walls were all clean, I kept on going with the cleaning because there were a lot of spaces in this laundry that needed to be cleaned: above the washing machine and dryer, on the bench top, and also on these tiles. I just gave everything a really good clean while I was going. Now it's time to get started on my wood panel feature wall.

I'm going to be using a large sheet wood panel that I got from Bunnings, but it didn't quite fit the wall and I didn't want to have to cut down a really thin slice of that wood panel because that would mean I would need to buy an entire extra panel just for a tiny strip. My solution was to cut the board in half and then use 90mm boards and put them on either end of the big panel just to fill in the gaps. I measured the height of the room that I was going to need for these boards, then I marked the measurement onto the timber before cutting it down to size with my Ryobi drop saw.

Once they were the right size, I applied liquid nails onto the back of the boards and then applied the boards onto the wall to hold them in place while the glue was drying. I did apply a couple of nails using my brad nailer. If you don't have a brad nailer or a nail gun that you can use to hold the boards against the wall, the glue will be strong enough to hold them once it dries. However, you will need to come up with another solution, maybe just drill in a couple of screws and then remove them once the glue has dried.

This is the large ply board panel that I'm going to be using to create the shiplap timber look on this wall. I did the same thing with this panel. I applied liquid glue on the back and then just grabbed a scraper and used that to level out a little bit so that this glue would stick to the wall nicely. Once the panel is up on the wall, you can then go back along and fill in all of the gaps with no more gaps. This is going to give you a much more seamless transition between the different pieces of timber and give you an overall more professional look. Once the no more gaps was dry, I grabbed out my orbital sander and gave it a sand down just to make it all really smooth.

I personally am such a lover of dark paint. Not only am I going to be painting my shiplap feature wall with dark paint, but I'm also going to be using the same color here on my back door. This is a colour bond colour called Monument and I'm applying an oil-based paint here onto this door because this door does actually get quite a lot of wear and tear, especially because it's the door for my dogs to go inside and outside. Once I'd completed that first coat of paint on the back door, I then grabbed out my orbital sander and gave a quick sand over all of this plyboard. Sometimes you can have little rough patches when you buy a sheet of plyboard, so it's good just to run the sander over all of that.

I then went back through and filled any extra gaps that I missed the first time around and then started to paint the black Monument paint onto this wall as well. Dark colours don't suit every space and sometimes dark colours can really make the space feel a lot smaller. But when used the right way and adding in a lot of extra warmth through the styling of the space, a dark wall can look spectacular.

Initially, I grabbed out the dark green paint that I had originally used in the laundry. Now this dark green paint, I started to paint onto the walls and as soon as I painted it on I started to feel like maybe it wasn't the right color. But paint does look quite different as it dries and I wanted to give myself the benefit of the doubt so I did paint this paint on the entire room before deciding that no, this is definitely not the right colour for the space.

I still included painting this colour on in the video because I wanted to show you that it doesn't have to be perfect the first time and if your style choices are not what you want them to be, you can easily change them. So once the first coat of everything was all dry, I then went back in the next day and applied a second coat of paint onto this feature wall. This is that Monument colourbond colour and I think it really looks spectacular with the timber grain lines here showing through the shiplap pattern really well. Because I'm absolutely obsessed with green in my home at the moment, I decided that I wanted to do a lighter green colour and that I was still going to keep the similar sort of idea that I had in my mind, just lighten this green up a lot. So I painted on two coats of this paint which is called Slender Pine by British Paints. Now that all the painting's finished, it's time to start putting the laundry together.

These are those brackets that I painted and stained earlier, so they're now ready to apply. I decided what height I wanted to have the shelves and then I screwed the brackets on with my drill. You'll be able to see here I held the bracket up to make sure that it was the right height before I continued to install the brackets and just to make sure that the brackets were all going to be at the exact same height so that my shelf was level. To make sure this shelf was going to be stuck on there super strong, I also applied liquid nails onto the back of the brackets even though I'm going to be screwing them onto the wall.

Once the three brackets for this particular shelf had been installed onto the wall, I was able to put the shelf up there and then I was able to use these brackets to screw the shelf on. So there's going to be two screws that go up into the shelf and two screws that go into the wall. I then repeated the process for the second shelf. I measured out the distance between the brackets, marked where the brackets were going to go, then applied liquid nails onto the back of the brackets and screwed them onto the walls.

You'll be able to see now what I was talking about in terms of the timber on the dark feature walls. If you don't have the timber, you don't have that additional warmth that it brings in and the dark can look a little bit harsh, but by adding the timber, it really makes the dark colour pop. Now for practical reasons, I wanted to add a hanging rail on this bottom shelf because there's quite a lot of clothes that I put through my washing machine that I don't want to put through my dryer so that they don't get really wrinkled and they don't shrink. This way, now with this hanging rail, I can then just put them through the washing machine and then grab them out and hang them on the rail so that they can dry. I grabbed this powder-coated hanging rail and also the end rod attachments from Bunnings and I'm just going to simply screw these on upside down to the shelf so that the hanging rail is then able to be used.

Now the last feature that I'm going to add into the laundry is a bit of a DIY creation where I'm going to use this piece of timber that I've painted the same colour as the back door and I'm going to insert it in the window sill so that I can create the effect of almost little small windows. I measured the space of the window so I had one long piece of timber down the middle and then two smaller pieces of timber on each side. And I used my Ryobi miter saw to cut these all down to size. This is an amazing saw for a beginner because it has a laser guide and it is really simple to use. So if you're a little bit hesitant to try power tools, this is definitely a great option for you because it's going to be super easy to use for the first few projects.

Once I had all these cut down to size, I then went back inside and measured out again and marked on the door exactly where they needed to go. I mixed up the two components of my epoxy glue, and then I applied that onto each piece of timber and then glued that onto the window frame. Now it was time for the styling elements, putting the last finishing touches on the laundry, and then it's time to reveal the end result. I cannot believe how much I love this space now and how much of a difference this $300 glow-up has made to the space.

The dark feature wall paired with the dark back door and the extra detail on the window that I've added just look spectacular. All the styling elements really bring it all together and it's now a space that makes me feel calm and much more at ease to want to spend more time here doing my laundry.

If you want to know more about any of the products or tools that I've used for this makeover just head back up to the top of this article where they are all linked.

I hope you've loved this makeover and that I've given you some inspiration that you could use to give your own laundry a glow-up.

 Watch the full step-by-step tutorial here: