It’s that time of the week – time to fill you in on our progress in the laundry room the past 7 days! If you’ve been following along, then you’ve seen the shape the laundry room started in and our first week of clearing things out and scraping the ceiling. This week was more of taking things out and prepping the room to transform it.
In unrelated to ORC news, our garage door broke this week, so we also fixed that, worked in the yard, attended another wedding and we’re in the middle of replacing the fence. Phew.
They say that preparation is the majority of where your time will be spent when you do a job right, and that is definitely the theme so far. That and frequent trips to Lowe’s. As always, our little furry helper had to be in on the action..
Here’s the official list of accomplishments in the room this week:
- Removed scotch tape from the walls – seriously, there were so many pieces of tape on each wall!
- Removed crown molding from cabinet
- Patched walls with 2 coats of joint compound (thus far)
- Measured walls to create a design template
- Removed the base boards
- Removed the trim around the door
- Removed cabinet doors
- Patched the ceiling
I’ve become skilled at using the molding pry bar to get the base boards off without hurting the drywall, removing a ton of nails, and even patching the walls with the joint compound. Plus we quickly clean up the room after any messy projects each night to keep it in working order for laundry and Cleo. The shop vac & Swiffer have become great friends of ours, haha.
Since we have a slew of tools & materials for the project, we’ve actually been keeping them in a big galvanized tub for quick access and to keep them all together. It’s been helpful and we can easily move all of them in one swoop if needed.
Outside of physical work, we also worked on planning the overall design on the space. We’ve talked about that cabinet above the washing machine multiple times this week and I even asked what you would do on Instagram. Well, we’ve decided to keep it and refinish it! We were tempted to remove it and put open shelving there instead, but right now it’s our only storage, so we don’t want to give that up and it’s convenient for detergent and other laundry items.
We’ve also decided to go with the Repose Gray paint color on the walls that we had in our old house, white ceilings and crown molding. We’ll sand and paint the cabinet white, then add new doors & hardware. We also know we want to replace all the trim around the doors & windows throughout the house with a more craftsman style and this DIY project has been great inspiration.
One of the other big decisions was around flooring. Originally we thought about using a wood tile, but we’re doing this project completely on our own and haven’t laid tile before. We also want something cost effective and know that one day we’ll refinish the wood floors that are right outside this room and likely stain them darker. With all of that in mind, we opted for some peel and stick vinyl floors that look like wood. We picked up 2 samples last week so will make a decision on which color soon.
The biggest outstanding decision is around storage. We desperately need storage in this room, but haven’t finalized what we want. We’ve done a lot of research in person and online and while we have a general idea of where we want the storage in the room, we just haven’t found what we’re looking for yet. Since we’re also planning for a bigger renovation in our living room this year, we don’t want to spend a huge chunk of change on custom cabinetry, but also want something that works and will last.
I’d love to hear any recommendations on creative and reasonably priced storage options!
So here are the current state photos of this room, as of Wednesday morning – you’ll be able to notice all the patching on the walls that had to be done and why it took so long:
Next up on the punch list is to sand the walls, ceiling and cabinet, as well as paint all of them. Likely multiple coats will be needed, so the quicker we can get started, the more time we have to finish all of them. Maybe we’ll have my mom painting with us this weekend when she’s in town 😉
I realized this week that this project is definitely going to take longer than the 6 weeks of the challenge. I’ve shifted my expectations a bit and now want to get the ceiling, walls, flooring and trim done in that timeline. That way we will have a finished room that is 100x better than when we started, but will have room for improvements – like storage.
After a lot of writing, that’s the current state of the room, both in design & progress! Don’t forget to check out the other guest participants in the One Room Challenge though the link up here.
