I am so excited for October’s project. Remember back in September when I didn’t have a project on my to-do list and I took apart the laundry room? Well now it’s time to put it back together.

I’m even more excited for this makeover because I’m going to make the laundry room my part of the One Room Challenge.

Linda at Calling it Home created the ORC three years ago as a way to help people stay on track and finish a room. Over the next six weeks, a group of bloggers and a whole bunch of joiners like me will be making over one room. We’ll be posting weekly updates on our blogs. So it’s not all that different from how I’ve handled my other projects so far this year.

Now, I will admit that I’ve gotten a little bit of a head start on this challenge. I trimmed out the cabinet doors and painted them last month.

I wanted to complete the makeover in October, but I knew two weekends this month were booked for non-DIY activities. As a DIYer with a day job, I absolutely need my weekends if I’m going to finish this in one month.

Well, it turns out that the ORC gives me six weeks. So I’ll have a bit of a cushion.

The purpose of today’s post is to introduce my room and tell you my plan.

Everyone, meet the laundry room. Laundry room, meet everyone.

Here’s the part where the laundry room tells you a little bit about himself. We are very fortunate that we have a great space to start from (and yes, I took these photos after the makeover had already started–bad blogger). There is lots of counter space and built-in cabinets. We have a utility sink and our new (okay two-year-old) front loading washer and dryer. Even though we’re in the basement, we have a nice large window.

Now we redid the basement when we first moved to the farm. However, the makeover pretty much stopped at the edge of the laundry room. I scraped the stipple ceiling, took down the fluorescent light fixture, removed some posters that had been tacked to the front of the cabinets (why?) and that was it. Oh, except for our new washer and dryer (love you babies).

Since the room is open to the rest of the basement, I’d really like it to be as pretty as the rest of the basement. And right now, it’s not.

So this makeover is purely aesthetic, and I’m working with what is there in the laundry room already.

Here’s the vision:

Sources: Black and white cabinets, chrome cup pull, rustic drying rack, clothes pin chandelier

And here’s the plan:

1. Add shaker style trim to the cabinets
2. Paint the cabinets
3. Install doors and drawers
4. Remove ceiling rack – By Oct. 3
5. Patch ceiling and walls – By Oct. 3
6. Prime walls and paint ceiling – By Oct. 10
7. Paint and install baseboard and paint window trim – By Oct. 10
8. Deep clean (sink, counter, floor, machines) – Oct. 13 (Happy Thanksgiving Monday!)
9. Paint walls – By Oct. 17
10. Build and install ceiling rack – By Oct. 24
11. Build and install towel bar – By Oct. 24
12. Install cabinet hardware – By Oct. 24
13. Build and install light fixture – By Oct. 26
14. Decorate – By Oct. 31

Fourteen easy steps to laundry room bliss. Simple right?

Is anyone else doing the One Room Challenge? Do you find pretty laundry rooms as exciting as I do?