There's no place like Home Depot

My husband has a weakness. It is one that I'm sure many are familiar with themselves, men and women alike, but probably this is a weakness more common with men. Ladies, since you and your husband bought that house, I'll bet there is one particular place where he is spending a lot of his time. You know it, don't you -- that huge building with the inviting orange logo on the front...

That's right: Home Depot.

I can make a simple mention of our need to visit 'The Depot,' as I call it, and you can see the gleam forming in Casey's eyes. Then they glaze over as he begins to imagine all of the things he might add, plant, renovate or paint. That last one is the one he does most and does best. If I want a room painted (and if we've both agreed on a color), it is pretty much guaranteed that Casey will have it done -- this includes prepping the walls (spackling, sanding, wiping down), priming then painting a couple of coats -- in about two days.

Don't get me wrong, I too adore Home Depot. I think (since becoming a homeowner, anyway) that it is a very magical place with magical things that can make my house oh-so-pretty. I just don't have the same enthusiasm for the work as Casey, bless his heart. But I love that he loves to do that kind of work. I mean, he really enjoys it. Me, I am happy to let him paint away as I sit in front of the TV with my latest knitting project.

We decided just recently to make some changes to the laundry room. It is the room we move through many times a day, because it is where we enter and exit the house from and to the garage (for us it is very strange to think of using the front door). Because of this, we wanted it to look as inviting and as sunny as possible. And what could be more sunny than yellow? Now, the laundry room is not a big room by any means. But if Casey and I have learned anything in the past few years, it is how to use every bit of space in an efficient way. That doesn't mean we've made it happen all throughout the house, but we are getting there. Slowly but surely.

I recently talked here about some of our new organizations, one being the big set of shelves I wanted to add to the laundry room. I just love it! I'm still working on exactly what I want to put there, but it's mostly full at this point. One of my best ideas (I'm bragging because these ideas are far and few between -- cut me some slack!) was to take down the big brown kitchen-looking cabinets above the washer/dryer in order to open up the room just a bit more. In their place we'll have some nice, open shelves across that wall.

When we moved into this house nearly three years ago, the laundry room walls had a very quaint wallpaper on them that we actually liked. It was neutral and had a sort of garden theme going on in small pictures. I didn't think we'd do anything to the walls for a long, long time. Then I saw some renovations in a magazine and my mind went to work. I think it was the idea of the perfect yellow along with removing the cabinets that made us think, Okay, now we have to do this!

One thing I love about Casey and I visiting 'The Depot' to pick out a paint color is that somehow we have always been able to eventually come to an agreement on one color. We will do our own individual searches, then come back together to compare our finds. I've learned that, no matter if you think you know what color you want, you will still take some time looking through every shade of that color. And I don't know why this is, but the names given to the paint colors always seem important to me. Why is that? Not that I'll necessarily reject a color based on its name (our dining room is painted in 'Cold Cash'), but I can be influenced.

The color decided on for the laundry room is called Summer Harvest. One that Casey had found before that was called Bicycle Yellow, and in his opinion was too much a 'radioactive yellow.' I don't know what it is, but when the color is chosen, it is so exciting! Even more exciting is when the paint person punches in the code and mixes it all up together on that machine thingy, then pries the lid open to reveal your paint and uses a hairdryer on the spot he or she puts on the lid. Anyone not familiar with this whole process is at this point saying, "Huh?!?" Just trust me...it's thrilling.

So far, the cabinets are down (why didn't we take a before picture?), the wallpaper is peeled, the walls have been sanded/spackled/wiped down, and the primer is on. See what I mean? We only went to Home Depot last night, and before we went to bed Casey had that wall primed. Our new white shelves sit in the garage as they await their new home on the laundry room wall, and even though I realized later on that having open shelves means making sure things look a little neater at all times, I'm okay with it. Wasn't making this room look better the whole point after all? And so, I am very excited to see the finished product. If it looks as good as it does in my mind, maybe I'll share a photo or two.

And if I know my husband, the final coat should be up this afternoon.