Garage entry makeover!

My obsession with classic cars started at a young age. My dad drove a 60's era Ford truck when I was a child and I was in LOVE with that truck. I can still remember the smell of the interior and the grumbling growly noises it would make as we travelled down the road, as if I had just gone on a ride in it yesterday. The elements weren't kind to my dad's truck, and as the bed of the truck began to rust away from the cab he gave up his dreams of restoration sold it. A few years ago while driving down a lonely road in North Dakota I spotted a truck similar to my dad's and took this picture...probably someone else's restoration dreams rusting away in a field.

My husband and I purchased a 1969 VW Karmann Ghia with hopes of restoring it in 2011. We literally had no clue what that entailed, and shortly after purchasing the car we decided our 'project' was destined to be permanently placed on the bottom of the priority totem. So...the car sat in our garage rusting away until we sold it last year for $500.

With my dream of owning a classic car behind me, I had to settle for a substitute. I go to car shows whenever I get a chance, but I needed a classic car injection at home. One of my neighbors has a classic Ford and I noticed his garage is covered in Ford memorabilia. This sparked an idea to do a crazy thing...paint and decorate MY garage entry. I honestly had never considered the garage part of my 'home'. I try to go in my garage as little as possible, mostly because I'm terrified of all the creatures that inevitably inhabit Florida garages. I had some leftover pain and a lot of my own classic car signs, so this project didn't require any trips to the hardware store! This is what I started with...

Everything was dirty and dingy, as you would expect in a garage. The first thing I did was rip out the piece of remnant carpeting. The carpeting had a practical purpose, keeping sand out of the kitchen, but it had seen better days and didn't fit my design aesthetic. Once the carpet was gone I started painting. I had some leftover Glidden paint in Cement Gray from the Martha Stewart paint collection. It was a perfect color for the garage. I decided to add a pop of color to the door and paint it a fun (off the mistint shelf at Ace) turquoise blue! (Tip: Frequently check the mistint and oops paint sections at your local hardware stores, when you find a color you love buy some and keep them on hand just in case!) After all the paint was dry I hung all my signs and added a piece of black and white checkerboard remnant flooring.

Laundry Room Redo!

My last house had a huge laundry room. It was amazing! I could actually keep dirty laundry in the laundry room because there was so much room to spare! The house my husband and I purchased November 2013 has a laundry closet with bifold doors. Doing laundry actually felt depressing. Take a look at the before...

I wasn't lying when I said it was pretty depressing. Ultimately these items were my inspiration for the final product.

I didn't want to move the washer and dryer all over the house so I decided to tackle this project one side at a time. After disconnecting everything and taping off the trim I started painting. I chose 'Let's Have a Party', one of the new colors from the OPI line by Clark & Kensington.

It took FOUR coats of paint to get adequate coverage. I nearly ran out of paint but somehow I finished with a few drops left. I had a few accessories that I decided to repurpose but I also wanted some sort of storage. I decided to look at Goodwill and found this metal tiered storage rack for $2.99!

I decided to take it down to bare bones and gave it a quick spray of white paint. It is now the perfect place to store Downy balls and dryer sheets!

I knew I wanted a countertop to take advantage of having a front loading washer and dryer. This turned out to be the biggest challenge of the project. My husband ended up building the countertop. My only contribution was applying paint. I used Rustoleum Satin Black paint I had leftover from another project. It covered well in two coats and is tough enough to withstand constant wear. To hide the hoses and outlets I placed three Magnetic Bullet Boards along the backsplash of the countertop. The project took most of a weekend, but I ended up loving the end result!