Laundry Room Decoration

There are some perpetual problems with living in a rent house...You can't get away from the fact that you aren't allowed to paint the walls or make any type of nail holes in the wall. These problems make decorating a rent house very difficult.

With that being said, I have this empty space above my washer & dryer. It's really sad looking and it overlooks my kitchen (which as you know, I spend alot of time in). I have been looking for an inexpensive way to decorate it that overcomes the two problems I listed above and I think I have found the solution!

I went to Hobby Lobby and found these wood letters:

There was quite a bit of space (length wise) so I wanted letters that were pretty big. These letters cost $3.50 a piece (yikes!), but they have smaller letters for cheaper. They also have cardboard letters that are even cheaper. I found a blog a while back using cardboard letters, but I currently can't locate it. If you know where it is, leave it in the comments below!

If anyone is wondering, I'm using the letters to spell "wash". I wanted to spell out laundry but I didn't have the room (or the money!), so I had to improvise.

Next, you need to pick out the color of spray paint you want to use. Hobby Lobby sells spray paint, but at $8 a can, its to expensive for me! I got mine from Wal-Mart for $3.50. One can should be more than enough.

To start painting, place your letter in a well-ventilated area that you don't mind getting a little paint on. I used green to paint mine so I just did it outside on the grass. If you are using a different color and don't want to spray paint your lawn you can put some newspaper under your letters. Make sure you shake your spray paint can for about a minute before you get started and then start spraying your letters at a distance of about 6 inches or so. The amount of coats your letters will need depends upon the type of spray paint you buy and if you prime your wood. I didn't feel like priming my wood and mine needed about 3 coats.

Here is what they look like drying in the sun:

Note: Be careful when painting outside, a bug committed suicide on my S which smudged my paint. Nothing another coat can't fix though!

The colors are a little bit different in every picture because the change in lighting.

Here is a picture once they fully dried:

So, now we have tackled the painting issue of rent house but we still have the no nail holes problem. The simple solution to this is using command strips. I pretty much use these to hang everything in my house. As far as hanging the letters up, you can measure a line out if you want everything to be perfectly strait. I'm to lazy for that so I just eyeballed it.

Here is the finished product:

This project took about 15 minutes (not counting drying time) and looks great! To spice it up a little more, I'm probably going to add a small shelf as well :) That will also hide those ugly washer connections!

Note: Daniel did not really get the point of this decoration. I think he thought I was trying to give him some type of instructions with it lol so you may want to forewarn your significant other.

I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! Please leave comments/questions below!