laundry room

This whole stimulus package thing got me thinking... It could potentially provide a nice tax credit for homebuyers in 2009. While I likely won't be able to collect the whole thing, it will be a little added money to what I expected to have. Which got me thinking about what I would do with some extra funds.

• fence - this is a big one, potentially life-changing for someone like me, who is the mother of someone like Hudson. Just knowing that playground is blocks away will cause him to be gone in a flash every chance he gets. Containment is key. We could really use a backyard fence.
• deck stairs - the deck I've chosen for the back of the house won't have stairs to the ground. Hearthstone was trying to charge an extra $2000 for them, and I felt pretty confident I could have them built for less than that.
• crown molding - something I'd really love to have - it adds so much character!
• flat-screen - my living room is pretty small. to save space, it'd be pretty sweet to have a wall-mounted tv, instead of my big (WIDE) 27-incher sticking out.

One option that's really intriguing me is putting cabinets in the laundry room. I'd like the extra storage space, and a prettier place to do laundry wouldn't hurt. Ikea has some (relatively) inexpensive kitchen cabinetry that I could install (myself?). More importantly, they have a really cool design program that allows you to plan your space. There are tons of cute options, but my fav is the bead-board looking cabs in white. So cute! There are tons and tons of options for base cabinets, tall pantry-like cabinets, wall cabinets, drawers, shelves, doors, any combo you can think of. Here is what I've been messing around with. The laundry room is about 6x8 feet...

What's really cool is that they have a TON of accessory-type stuff to make your cabinets really work for you. Like this ironing-board-in-a-drawer. How perfect would that be?! Also, the laundry-sorting bins that would fit underneath the drawers to hide away all that to-do work (so I could procrastinate just that much longer by not having to look at it...).