When we toured our new home during its open house, we loved the land, the space, and the potential. One thing we didn’t love? The design choices of the previous tenants. I’m not talking about dated furniture or weird light fixtures–I’m talking about chartreuse, crimson, and royal blue walls. Thankfully, the sellers had painted over some of these interesting choices from the original owners. (The sellers only lived in the home 6 months before we bought it.) Oh, boy, though, was one particular room a nightmare. The laundry room was in desparate need of renovation. Imagine ugly linoleum paired with just the most awful shade of green/chartreuse walls possible… it made me and my husband feel anxious to be in there. In fact, you don’t have to imagine, you can see it….
From the machines toward the garage door, dining area, and mini closet. 
From the dining area into the room.
This room got to be our first to tackle, because my sweet mother-in-law let us know that she had ordered us a washer and dryer set as a housewarming gift. In her usual style, she goes totally overboard on giving gifts, which is incredibly kind. They were getting delivered a couple weeks after we moved in. That meant we had to move fast to update this room before they arrived. We pretty much started on the laundry room renovation the day we moved in.
The Beginnings
First things first, we pulled up the baseboards. We wanted to make sure to remove them carefully in order to keep them intact. First, we sliced along the top using utility knives to detach the layer of paint holding them to the wall. Then we used our Dasco Pro prybars in order to pull them away from the wall. Finally, we needed a hammer and crowbar to fully detach them.
We then pulled up the two door kick plates on the doors to the garage and back yard. Then, we removed the door to the tiny closet in the corner. (We decided to use that as a pet supplies/cleaning supplies closet with a kitty door at the bottom, and put the litter box at the bottom.) Floor scrapers like this one helped us pull up all the vinyl flooring without much hassle, and then we headed to the store to pick out tiles and paint.
We decided on the paint immediately above the tile in this picture, Valspar Snowy Dusk. 
This was the heaviest cart I have ever pushed.
The Renovation
Once we picked out our tile, Della Torre Annabelle Grey, and our paint, Valspar Snowy Dusk (which we will also be using in both bathrooms), we started painting that night. We painted until 2 am in order to start tiling in the morning. Our neighbor used to work installing floors, so he helped us quite a bit. He showed us how to mix thinset (MAPEI Ceramic), cut the tiles (we rented a wet saw from Home Depot Rentals), and make sure they are spaced and leveled correctly (using TAVY 1/8 inch spacers). We’re super grateful for his help!
Inspector Willow checks out our work during the dry layout of the tiles, after paint had dried. 
This is where it got tricky during mortaring, as we had to make sure each row and column was individually lined up correctly.
Finally, we grouted the tile with MAPEI Keracolor sanded grout after it had set for 24 hours. Costco delivered our awesome machines a couple days later! I don’t have any pictures of the room with the machines in it yet, unfortunately. (Currently it is full of laundry and an absolute disaster!) I am going to make a second post soon to update y’all. I plan on building a laundry basket shelf, a counter over the machines, and a freestanding pantry in the room within the next few weeks. Stay tuned for the next phase of our laundry room renovation!
The Results!
This was taken as the thinset was drying, with the spacers/levelers still in place. 
And this was after grouting! I love how the pattern turned out.