Floods: Moving the washing machine

One of my future projects for next year was going to be moving the washing machine from the back hallway into the garage.  However, since my washing machine has now twice flooded my family room, I moved that time frame up to last week.

When we moved in, our washing machine and dryer resided in a small closet in the back hallway off the family room.  (I'm sorry this picture is blurry, but also, both my cameras broke. Actually, you probably would not believe the list of things that broke over a ten day period this month. I kept looking around for Candid Camera, because there is no way this many things could break one after the other.)

This is right next to the door into the garage, and only a few feet from the front door.

Since the washer and dryer were in a small, narrow hallway between a bathroom and the garage door, all of our prodigious amount of dirty laundry tended to accumulate in our front foyer.  Open our front door, and hello, ten loads of laundry. 

Luckily, the washer and dryer closet was on the other side of the garage wall. I had a plumber open the other side of the wall and flip the plumbing around.  The washer and dryer then moved out to the garage. Since we had the wall open and the plumbing was moving around anyways, I had the plumber install a rough-in for a future utility sink, which will go next to the washer next year.

Before:

After:

I am so happy that our dirty laundry is no longer in piles in our foyer.

This leaves me with a deep, empty closet in the back hallway.

Once I get the holes patched up and the trim reattached, we are going to turn this space into a little office area.  Its already wired for electric, and its fairly deep, so it will hold a small desk and chair.

Come back tomorrow and see my design dilemma--I found two rolls of beautiful wallpaper, and I can't decide if I should use it in the office nook, where I have enough for the whole space, or do I put it on only one wall in the bathroom you can see off to the left.