Dungeon to Laundry room

Here's our dungeon of a laundry/furnace room. The picture doesn't accurately show how dark this room really is. It's hard to take a decent picture of a dungeon.

Gotta love the gray cinderblock. So blah!

The previous owners had finished the basement shortly before they put the house on the market, and they left behind some 5 gallon buckets of leftover paint when they moved out. Since they chose blah builder's beige (which I detest), I didn't see us using it, but I hate to be wasteful. Then I realized I could use some of it to paint the cinderblocks- even blah builder's beige is better than blah gray cinderblock.

So much better! Though the painted cinderblock now reminds me of my college apartments.

Once I got started, I couldn't stop. I cleared out the boxes, hung drop cloths on the exposed stud walls and around the heater, hung the cupboards I took down from the kitchen (more on that later), and laid down some cheap carpet.

The carpet is just a bit wider than the central walk space, with the edges tucked under the appliances and around the heater. I got the cheap carpet because I dislike the bare concrete floor (I hate dropping clean laundry on the concrete floor) and if we ever have water problems (none yet, and we had some torrential rains last spring), it'll be inexpensive to replace. In the meantime, it looks so much more... finished. Less dungeon-like.

The predominant color in the laundry room is now beige, but given how busy (i.e. crowded) the room is, I'm not sure if I'll add color or not. My OCD appreciates not looking at exposed studs and wires and pipes, and everything is organized so much better.