laundry room: super sneak peak (if i showed you more you'd be horrified)

back in july, we sold our completely finished labor of love. a house i cried when we moved into. and i cried the day we moved out. BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS that house.  the day we moved in, we turned the key, stepped in and what we found was pure filth. dog hair littered the floor, the fridge was DISgusting, whoever had painted it must have been blind, it had green carpeting, lime and purple walls and it was ALL ours.

we spent the next 6 years transforming it. room by room. every bit of it we did ourselves. we painted every ceiling, every wall, every moulding and door. we installed new hardware, new floors, new fixtures, new sinks and faucets, tile, countertops, you name it.  most of it i did while pregnant with ian, and the rest i did on my maternity leave.

sean would come home to find me teetering on ladders, standing on my tip toes and he would laugh probably silently judging my psychotic obsession.

people that know me, know that i do this because i like it to look nice yes, but mostly because this sort of work is like therapy to me. transforming ugly into not is actually therapeutic and fills me.

in july we bought another complete project. starting anew for some more space and here we are again and i'm standing in what feels like the pits of hell starting all over. on an uneven subfloor, scraping wallpaper paste for probably the 18th hour. therapy, this does not feel like.

two weeks ago, when i thought i couldn't take on anymore i did what any normal (psycho) would do and started a project that was much bigger than I imagined. i peeled up a corner of the torn and stained linoleum thinking 'subfloor' would look better than this. but no, it doesn't.

and so begins the transformation of the laundry room/mud room.

people keep asking me, why that room? when your kitchen is so uh....brady bunch. and your bathrooms are so uh...1980. but this is our everything room. it's where we come and go, it's where i live sorting and folding laundry, it's where our shoes and coats and cleaning supplies and tools are. i feel like if this room was clean and done and organized i will feel so too.

people that know me also know, this will not satisfy me for long.

this room has been so physically and emotionally challenging so far. tears have been shed. sean HAS found me a crumpled heap in the corner, my right hand sore and swollen from scraping. OH THE SCRAPING. whoever applied this wallpaper 35 years ago, please show yourself. I'd like to have a little chat.

i did what i swore i would never again do and that's to paint the cabinets myself, and after a week of doors laying all over the house i've successfully primed, primed, painted and painted, each side of 12 doors. this is happening.

here we go again.