The Laundry Room Reveal

As promised, it's finally time to show you my completed Laundry Room.  But first, let's take a look at where we started:

And here's where we are today:

 I love this little corner with one of my favorite quotes framed and the fun "My Stache" jar I etched.

 This drying rack from Ikea has been used countless times already, and I love the new utility sink and rack above it which holds paper towels, sponges and a finger nail scrub brush for all the paint, stain and dirt I get under my nails when doing projects.  Maybe someday we'll upgrade to a fancier laundry tub, but right now, with dozens of dirty projects still ahead of us, I'm glad to have a place to rinse out paint, grout and other messes without worrying about ruining the sink.

After the total mess that was the laundry shoot, I'm so proud of how it, and the shelving turned out.

And how about this sexy rug that I painted?

This is one of my favorite photos of Ry ever, and I thought it would bring a smile to my face whenever I was in there folding insurmountable amounts of laundry.  And that watering can?  It's from Ikea and started like this:

So I pulled out my trusty can of Rustoleum Night Tide which was left over from this project.  Piece of cake.

And here's some more of that great wood counter top from Ikea.

And a shot of the fabric I hung to hide the ugly outlets and plugs.

I even organized the cupboards a bit.  By removing all the shelving from this one I have the perfect space for a hamper and a place to store laundry baskets when not in use.

The top cupboards hold towels and extra bedding.

While the bottom holds rag towels, the first aid kit and cleaning supplies.

So there she is.  Barely 50 square feet, but a whole lot of work and projects.  If every room in this house takes as much work, I'm in for some trouble.  For this room, a dream, main floor Laundry Room in my dream house, it was totally worth it.

#177- Cutting a Rug

I've been looking for a rug for the Laundry Room for some time now.  The small, square, white porcelain tile with brown grout doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, and I figured that a good short term solution would to put a rug so fabulous on top of the tile that you wouldn't even notice it.

I wanted something with a pop of color, and a bold, modern design, but refused to pay upwards of $100 for a rug for the Laundry.  Top it with a kind of awkward size requirement, (the space is 2 feet wide and only about 6.5 feet long, while most runners are a full 7 feet), and it was a difficult search.  I did, however, find the perfect dimensions and sale price on this name rug from Ikea- just $29.99.

The problem was it was beige and boring.  But once I saw this inspiration on Pinterest from Pudel-design, and I had my motivation.  The blog warned that it was a long process, but I was too excited about the idea to care.  Rookie mistake.

I started by printing out a pattern I liked on a large 11 x 17 piece of paper, and cutting it out.  Then I just traced the design on my rug.

 

It took me a little while to come up with the right writing utensil, since a pencil didn't show up, nor did a pen.  A Sharpie was too dark and took multiple coats to cover over with paint, but a dry erase marker was just right because it was dark and visible on the rug, but covered with paint easily.

You can see in this photo down below in the lower left hang corner where I was tracing with Sharpie and the paint definitely did not cover it.  Oops.

It's not that this project was hard, it just took an incredibly long time.  After I had finally traced all my design, I had to go through and fill it all in.  And at least 4 hours later, it became painfully obvious that my paint was going to need 2 coats.  If I had to do it all over again, (and for those of you planning to attempt this,) I would definitely paint the entire rug with a coat of primer as my very first step.  Otherwise the fibers are so porous, it will take multiple coats to get the color and coverage you're looking for.  A can of spray primer would have been ideal.... but I don't want to think about that.  Don't say I never did anything for you.

See the shapes in the top center?  Just one coat.

Speaking of paint, I just purchased 1 quart of indoor, flat latex paint, and it worked great.  In some of the blogs I have read about painting rugs I've seen people use fabric paint or add a fabric paint additive to make their paint softer, but I didn't seem to have that problem.  I think it is because my rug had much more texture than a flat sea grass rug.  My paint soaked right in and still feels relatively soft to the touch.

For brushes I started with a small, angled craft brush to trim out the edge of the design.

And then I found that a thick stencil brush gave me the best coverage for the inside of the design.  And after 8 hours of work when 2 coats of my blue/gray/green was applied to the entire rug, I realized that I was going to have to paint the lines of my design white.  I didn't want to, and I tried to convince myself that it wasn't important, but I'm obsessive compulsive like that, and it just had to happen.  See?

 

Way better right?  But guess what- another 3 hours later once all the white was filled in, I had to go back with the second coat of white.  Shoot me.  See how 1 coat of primer would have cut the project time of this one in half?  Here's a closer look so you can see why the white needed a second coat:

All in all it wasn't too bad actually, for about a week I'd just spend a few hours every evening painting while I was watching TV with the hubs. (And yes, a few pathetic weekend evenings staying up late, watching a chick flick and drinking a glass of wine while crafting.  My 16 year old self would be so disappointed in my lameness. ) It was sort of cathartic actually, and it made me feel artistic even though I've never painted anything but walls or furniture.  

Here's where I ended up after approximately 12 hours on this project. (Which is probably an underestimation.)  It was a long haul, but totally worth it I think:

So check in tomorrow for the big Laundry Room reveal.  (Well, it's a big deal for me anyway.  Try to humor me.)

A Place for our Stache

The Laundry Room projects still continue, but while I'm slaving away on a rug for the room, I thought I'd update you with a quick little accessory I made for the room, based on this inspiration I found on Pinterest. Since I already had a jar handy in my cupboard that hasn't found a home in the new house yet, all I needed was something to paint on the glass with.  Turns out Michaels has glass etching markers, and with my 50% off coupon, it only cost me $2.15.  Practically stealing.

So I played around on my design programs for a while to find the exact style and font I wanted, and printed it out.  Then I just taped my design to the inside of the jar, and traced it with my glass etching marker.

My name is Erin, and while I don't have a single artistic bone in my body, by God I can trace.

Then you just wait 24 hours, and then bake it in the oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  And viola:

 

What better accessory for the Laundry Room than a place to "stache" all that change found in our pockets?  The entire project took me about 10 active minutes and $2.15.  That's my kind of DIY.  On the completely other end of the time spectrum is the rug I've been working on. I can't wait to share that  project with you on Monday, if by some miracle I have it done by then.  How about you guys?  Any big plans this weekend?  Any DIY?  Please share, it makes me feel less crazy. :)

Painting the Laundry Room for the 4th Time. Shoot me.

This Laundry Room is going to be the death of me.  For those of you that haven’t been following along, here’s what we’ve done so far:

Painted the walls

Bought new front loading washers and dryer

Hung some shelving

Installed cupboard hardware

Bath Crashers tore out the walls to wire electrical to the new bathroom

Bath Crashers installed a laundry shoot from the new bathroom

Patched and repainted the walls again

Hung the shelves again

Removed the laundry shoot Bath Crashers installed

Framed out the laundry shoot

Patched and repainted the walls again

Reinstalled the shelves again

Tore out the blue counter tops

Installed new wood counter tops over washer/dryer and cupboards.

Yep, all that work in one little 6’x7’ room.  And because nothing can ever be easy, when I took out the old blue counter top and put in the new one, it left a pretty big mess on the walls.  

 

Time to patch again.  I went back to my trusty, left over joint compound. 

I not only touched up the dings on the walls, but also took the opportunity to skim coat a few areas of the wall that had some bad paint-over-old-wallpaper-paste.  Skim-coating is basically spreading a thin coat of joint compound over a larger area to smooth it out.  As in the first few times I patched the walls, I waited for my joint compound to dry completely, sanded it down, and then applied another coat just to be 100% sure it was all smooth and even.  After the second sand down, it was ready to go.

And again, like before, I first applied primer to the patches before I painted.  If you skip this step, you will be able to see your patch even when painted over with the same color, as the texture of the wall will be different.

And in the interest of keeping it real with you all, here’s the disaster that was my laundry room during this process.  Because dirty laundry stops for no one, especially when you have a 3 year old boy in the house. 

Primer only takes a couple hours to dry, so I was back with a coat of paint in no time.  Which is unfortunately when I noticed this.

Yep, my wall, like my husbands sense of humor, must be a little warped, because right in the center of my counter, but not the sides, there was a gap between the counter top and the wall.  I lined counter with some fresh painters tape, and put down a bead of paintable latex caulk.  I picked up this handy little tool for applying caulk during one of our thousands of remodels.  Ithelps you get a nice clean 45 degree angle. 

By immediately removing the tape after smoothing down the caulk , you get a nice smooth line. 

I let it dry for a couple more hours, then laid down yet another line of tape to protect the counter, and applied what is hopefully the last bit of Rainwater by Martha Stewart paint that will ever be applied to these walls again.  Ever.  I’m serious.  Ev. Er.  If I have to paint or touch up these walls again, I’m moving.

 

We're almost done.  Just a few more fun projects left in this room to give it a little personality like a rug and some accessories. Of course I couldn't just buy a rug, and that project is taking forever, but I promise to show it to you all as soon as it is done.  What did you all do this weekend?  Any painting? 

#176- The Great Cover Up

Alright, we're making Laundry Room progress now... let's keep this rollin'. On to # 176 on The List (a new addition) a way to cover up all those ugly plugs and cords.

Frequent OPaaT readers (all three of you) won't be surprised to hear I took a little inspiration from Pinterest on this one.  Specifically this great idea to use a fun patterned piece of fabric.  Love it.

So I armed myself with a 50% off coupon and headed to JoAnn Fabrics where I found an awesome Dwell Studios pattern in just the right colors.  First I had to quick hem the edges for a nice, crisp look, and I also sewed a pocket across the bottom. 

The I took my stapler and carefully attached the fabric to the bottom of the shelf in the Laundry Room, as close to the wall as I could get.  I made sure to staple the underside so that they wouldn't show.

Viola!

The only problem is that my fabric had a huge lump in it.  Here's a close up.

 

Peak back behind the curtain and you find this culprit:

For some reason our brand new washer came with the worlds longest plug, not the standard flat plug that our new dryer has.  Nothing that a little trip to the Home Depot couldn't fix, I just picked up a short appliance extension cord.

And we were back in business...

There's that left over wall paper on the floor again... I'm such a slob.

Comin' together... right?  Because you know I love a good before and after, here's where we started.

But we're still not done, besides sweeping that floor, I still need to create a solution for the rug, fix the wall that got pretty dented from the Big Blue removal, and work on a few other accessories.  But it's coming together.  You know you'll be the first to see the progress.  (Like you could stop me from spilling it all in painstaking detail.