But,
If you are to fully appreciate what I've done in my laundry room, I have to come clean with the before.
The untouched, unedited, unstyled (snort) before.
Who knew you could cram so much fun in one tiny room? An even bigger mystery is how all that fun was actually contained in that room once it was all unleashed upon my kitchen.
OK, so the ottoman wasn't in the laundry room, that's a story for another day.
Crappy cell phone pic
The horror just keeps growing. Speaking of growing, look what was growing under my dryer. Ewwwww! Apparently my house is filthy. And I'm a lazy painter.
Enough. I can't take anymore.
Not an official AFTER, an almost after. I still have a few things to do, but I'm no good at waiting. I want to replace the cheerful florescent fixture and I still have to put extenders on the outlets so I can replace the covers. I will add some color in the way of artwork, but even unfinished, it's miles better than before.
The white vinyl floor isn't my favorite, but it's practical and probably won't be getting changed anytime soon. I want to cover the stippled ceiling with more wood planks, eventually.
It's a tiny room, 9' x 5' at the widest point. The pantry closet in the kitchen juts out into this room so the entry point is only as wide at the doorway. Because of that, I took the door down years ago to gain a few extra inches. In a room this tiny, every little bit helps.
I'm super proud of this little project, one, because it was on a tiny budget, and two, I did 98% of the work myself. I did need Mitch for a little heavy lifting. Getting that shelf up with the dryer back in place would have been the death of me. He also helped with the planking once it got over my head, just because holding those 8 foot planks and the nailer and keeping the spacing even all over my head was pretty awkward.
I had the wood for the planks cut at Lowe's. The guy working in the lumber department that evening was less than excited about making the cuts. I say this not to reflect negatively on Lowe's, I've have cuts made several times before without problem, but this fellow, he didn't want to be bothered. I share this only to say, even though based on reading other blogs, getting as many cuts as you want for whatever project you have is no prob. Just get the guys at the big box store to do it for you. It isn't always that smooth going. At first this gentleman ignored us, then he said he thought he heard someone say the saw wasn't working. Another associate overheard and corrected him, assuring him it was working just fine. When I told him what I wanted cut, he shook his head and said that was project cuts and they don't do those. To make a long story short, he eventually made the cuts, but not before I consulted with my nephew who is a manager in the plumbing section. All that to say, they may not be happy about it, and you may have to pay a little for the cuts, but for me it was worth it.
I used 4' x 8' sheets of hardboard. It was on the isle with the molding and is cheap. Less than $8 a sheet. I had it cut into 6" x 8' planks.
If I were to do this again, I would not use the same product. It was easy to work with because it's super thin and light, making it easy to handle alone, but because it's a pressed material, not wood, the edges can get messy, for lack of a better work. It's a pressed product so the cut edges aren't perfectly smooth making the vertical seams more obvious. I think a plywood product would have sanded smoothly making the seams less noticeable. I attached them planks to the wall with a brad nailer from Harbor Freight.
I made the cuts around the outlets with a jig saw.
I used nickels to keep even spacing between the planks.
Another hindsight moment came with painting. If I do this again, I will at the very least prime the edges of the boards. It aint easy to get paint in those little grooves.
What worked for me was getting a lot of paint on my brush and kind of squishing it into the cracks then smoothing it out with a tiny brush. This one happened to be a brush that came with eyebrow powder. Hey, use what you got, right?
Squishing (very technical terminology)
Smoothing
One coat of primer, two coats of semi-gloss latex paint.
With this wall nearly complete, next up was the wall behind the machines. I had a couple of laundry rooms pinned that I seemed similar in size to mine and provided great inspiration.
Dreamy, right? That light? Her husband built that.
More dreaminess.
With my room being just about 5 feet wide, if I placed the cabinet in the center of the room, the shelves on either side would be really narrow, so I opted to go to one side. I liked the idea of the hanging bar, but decided it would feel too crowded, since the ceilings are only 8' high.
The cabinet was stolen from the attic room. It's not being used now and I can get a replacement. I told you this is a budget makeover folks. Besides the paint and wood for the planks, everything else was scrounged from the garage.
In the photo above, I used a strip of thin decorative molding to hide the edge of the MDF shelf. It was a little puny looking to me, so I ripped it off and added a 1x3 pine board to give the look of thick chunky shelves.
I also added a second shelf as you can see. I got slack about taking photos, too busy cutting and nailing.
Then came caulking. Caulk is just the cherry on top and makes everything look so much more finished. It hides all kinds of flaws.
Look at this cabinet before caulk.
And after.
The wall behind the machines was painted Tuxedo Tie by Valspar in flat. Once the shelves were up, I felt like it needed something. I decided to paint the area inside the shelves with chalkboard paint. I had a can in the garage, but when I opened it, the paint was nearly solid. Not to be deterred, I made my own.
I used the Tuxedo Tie and calcium carbonate, that yes, I happened to have on hand. I bought it months ago to make my own chalk paint, but knew it could also be used for chalkboard paint. Is there a difference?
I ordered mine from Amazon.
The ratio I used was about 3 teaspoons in 1/3 cup of paint. Then stir, stir, stir. I used a smooth foam roller and painted on a couple coats of my homemade chalkboard paint.
Then had fun writing myself a happy little message. Nobody else is going to be working in here.
I don't think it wall make me love doing laundry, just maybe enjoy the view a bit more.
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