Invisible Woman

laundry room makeover

My major project for the past week was long overdue makeover of our laundry room, aka the small-but-tall room between the garage and the rest of the house. The walls are 12 feet high, which required a 10 foot ladder for me to reach the ceiling line.

 

This makeover was planned back in 2006 when I bought the Elfa shelving, which moved here with us from VA! (Back then, we didn't have any Container Stores in Phoenix.) But somehow, this project kept getting bumped to the bottom of the to-do list.

 

And likely I'd still be procrastinating, if not for the sudden and messy collapse of the original builders shelf while I was back east a few weeks ago. Amazingly, I was able to locate all the stored Elfa components, which had quietly been collecting dust in the garage.

So now, with the walls repaired and freshly painted (by me) in a Sherwin-Williams mix of Martha Stewart's "Vintage Map", and with the Elfa components installed (by John), I'm ready to get organized in here. Our storage space in this room has more than quadrupled.

And getting a big project accomplished gave me a much-needed creative boost.

time for a makeover

No, not for me, worthy candidate though I may be.

The makeover in question is for a favorite piece of furniture.

 

It looks antique-y, but it's really just a modern piece that was made to look old.  When we got it 12 or 15 years ago, it was perfect for our Virginia decor.

Now, especially here in Phoenix, it feels very dated.

I love the aged pine color and the distressing, it's the drab stylized pastel figurals that bug me most.  So maybe I'll just eliminate those. 

Ha!  Like that's no small task...

So if I'm going to have to sand or strip off the current finish, shouldn't I at least consider all makeover options?

 

The chest itself is a beautiful shape and a perfect size, so it deserves to live up to its full potential in today's context. (Surrounding upholstery above is not a factor either.)

Maybe a simple semi-transparent wash of turquoise blue all over, with some accent striping?

Maybe outline the framework in a dark-and-cream motif and do some tone-on-tone stenciled or stamped patterns on the drawers, top and side panels, as inspired by David Marsh:

 

Or maybe go all-out colorful and folksy, a la the Sticks folks:

 

Hard to decide which style I'd like best.

Probably some strange Lu-amalgamation of all of the above.
 
 Luckily, there's no deadline for this makeover project.  The chest is fully functional, so I can let this percolate in my head for awhile.

Thoughts, anyone?