Dungeon to Laundry room

Here's our dungeon of a laundry/furnace room. The picture doesn't accurately show how dark this room really is. It's hard to take a decent picture of a dungeon.

Gotta love the gray cinderblock. So blah!

The previous owners had finished the basement shortly before they put the house on the market, and they left behind some 5 gallon buckets of leftover paint when they moved out. Since they chose blah builder's beige (which I detest), I didn't see us using it, but I hate to be wasteful. Then I realized I could use some of it to paint the cinderblocks- even blah builder's beige is better than blah gray cinderblock.

So much better! Though the painted cinderblock now reminds me of my college apartments.

Once I got started, I couldn't stop. I cleared out the boxes, hung drop cloths on the exposed stud walls and around the heater, hung the cupboards I took down from the kitchen (more on that later), and laid down some cheap carpet.

The carpet is just a bit wider than the central walk space, with the edges tucked under the appliances and around the heater. I got the cheap carpet because I dislike the bare concrete floor (I hate dropping clean laundry on the concrete floor) and if we ever have water problems (none yet, and we had some torrential rains last spring), it'll be inexpensive to replace. In the meantime, it looks so much more... finished. Less dungeon-like.

The predominant color in the laundry room is now beige, but given how busy (i.e. crowded) the room is, I'm not sure if I'll add color or not. My OCD appreciates not looking at exposed studs and wires and pipes, and everything is organized so much better.

Built in shelves

Saturday I finally installed some shelves in the odd little spaces at the foot of the basement stairs.

Once again I forgot to get some good before pics, so here's a couple from when we looked at the house before we bought it. This one is looking down the stairs. You can see the odd little wall jutting out on the right side.

This is looking down the hallway in the basement. The odd little wall in the pic above is now on the left side.

I took this one after I started. We've had a cabinet, boxes, bins, etc stacked in this space. It's too small for anything too big, but I hate leaving the space empty- it seems so wasteful.

The process was pretty simple. I used 1" x 10" boards because that's what fit in the space. I attached metal shelf strips (not sure what those are actually called) to each upright board. I left the baseboards attached to the walls, so I put a couple spacers between the wall and the boards so everything would be straight and even. I anchored the boards to the walls in a couple places and the shelves are a tight enough fit that the whole she-bang isn't moving anytime soon.

Insert a couple shelf clips, cut a board to size, and one shelf is finished.

The space on the left is roughly twice as wide as the space on the right, so I ended up with three separate shelving units. The one on the right has bins full of fabric and the two on the left have school and art supplies for LMS, as well as a couple toys that don't fit anywhere else. This pic is taken from the basement rec room, looking toward the shelves.

This pic is taken from the laundry room, looking past the shelves.

The shelves on the right go all the way to the ceiling- the open space will soon be filled :)

The shelves on the left go up as far as the ductwork, but there's still space on the right half for more baskets or bins if I need it. The two uprights in the middle are screwed together for added stability. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to paint the shelves or add trim to the uprights. I have a lot of other projects to work on, so I've got time to think about it.

I need to reorganize what's in the baskets and bins still, but it's already soooo much more organized. I didn't get a picture of them, but the clear bins and blue baskets have been all stacked up, migrating around the basement as we try to get everything situated. Now that I can actually see my fabric I can make some progress on some of my sewing projects. And I can sort through it all and make room for cuter fabric :) Some of my fabric is decidely un-cute.

Wood Play Kitchen

LMS used to have a plastic Little Tikes play kitchen, but I sold it about a year and a half ago. It was too big and too much plastic. I promised LMS I'd build her another play kitchen, and I FINALLY got around to it, just in time for Christmas. Literally :) I put the finishing touches on it Saturday night so she would have it Christmas morning.

I wanted a one piece kitchen, so I drew up my own plans, combining this plan and this one from AnaWhite.com. I added a door to the sink cabinet- I liked that a lot more than the curtain or leaving it open.

The stove burners are wood circles I found at Michaels and the stove knobs are wood wheels I found Hobby Lobby. The polka dot cabinet knob is also from Hobby Lobby. The stove handle is a random handle (from a sliding glass door, I think) that I got at the Habitat ReStore for $1 and then spray painted pink. I also found the faucet at the Habitat ReStore, and the sink bowl is a doggy bowl from wally world. The hardware and plexiglass for the oven door came from Lowes.

I cut the flowers from pink vinyl with my Silhouette. I personally think there's a few too many flowers on the kitchen (I got a bit carried away), but LMS loves it, so I'll leave it as-is for now. Eventually I might start peeling a flower off here, a flower off there....

I think it turned out great, and LMS loves playing with it!

Guest Room Nightstand

While I was painting this dresser, I decided to go ahead and finally paint this nightstand. I bought it at Goodwill a year and a half ago for $3, but then let it sit around looking ugly.

Since it was also destined for the guest room, I gave it a matching coat of chalk paint. I also switched out the outdated, not-retro-enough-to-be-cool drawer pulls-- unlike the ones on the dresser, which are retro enough to be cool :). I got the replacements at Hobby Lobby for half off, but they were a silver/pewter color so I spray painted them white to match the knobs on the dresser.

It really is amazing what a difference a coat of paint makes. It looks so much better!

I'm not embarassed to have people stay in the guest room anymore :)

And one of these days I'll get the board and batten up and paint the room and it'll look even better.

Guest Room Dresser

About a year ago I bought this dresser on craigslist, with the intent to paint it and make it look nicer. I finally got around to it just before Christmas. Here it is in all it's glory- I'd already taken the knobs off when I remembered I needed a before picture. The white paint on the top is from resting shelves I was painting on top of the dresser.

I sanded the white paint off the top, then mixed up some chalk paint. I'd heard good things about it, and decided to give it a try. I used blue paint leftover from painting the front door and added some white paint to tone the color down a bit. I spray painted the knobs white and then reattached them.

I love the result!

The dresser is in our guest room, but since I haven't done anything else in the guest room yet, there's nothing else to show.

Decorated Front Door

Not too long ago I saw a super-cute front door here, and once I accepted that I was done working on the porch and door till spring, I created my own version.

Cheri used a bright red wreath from Target, but I was afraid it would clash too much with the blue door, so I bought the natural version (on sale!) and a star tree topper. After removing the spring thing from the bottom, I carefully wedged the star into the wreath, hung it on a wreath hanger, and hung that on the front door.

To finish off the look, I cut the phrase (from Matthew 2:2) with my Silhouette and stuck it to the door. I usually buy my vinyl from ExpressionsVinyl.com, but if they don't have what I'm looking for I'll buy from SilhouetteAmerica.com. When I did our Happy Camper shirts half the vinyl came from Expressions and half from Silhouette because of color availability and price.

I also installed our flag pole and hung Christmas lights.

I love it!

New life for a tired front door

  Here's our front door. The natural wood color just doesn't go with the rest of the house. It stands out, and not in a good way.

If you look closer you can see that not only does the door not match the rest of the house, but the varnish is worn off and the wood is not in great shape.

 Can you see the fuzzing of the exposed wood fibers? Wood is not supposed to do that. Apparently the previous owners were a little too enthusiastic with the powerwasher.

One of the projects on our list of things to do before it got too cold was to make the door look a lot nicer.

The first thing I did was sand all the fuzzies off. So much better! 

Then I primed all that exposed wood.

I had originally planned on painting the side window panels a dark blue/black to match the shutters. Once I primed it though, I really liked the white look and changed my plan. I also realized that board under the door needs to be primed and painted as well. Not sure how I missed that one...

I painted the door blue. I LOVE the color, but I'm not convinced it works with the slightly pinkish siding. I'm leaving it for now, though.  

Then I painted the side panels white, and since I had the paint out I went ahead and painted the columns and the rest of the wood trim on the porch.  The rails are vinyl, but the columns are wood. I'm thinking the previous owners did a quick and dirty fix on the porch railings before putting the house on the market. I was only able to do one coat of paint before the cold weather moved in for good. I kept hoping the weather would warm up enough for me to get a second coat on, but it never did, so I just peeled off my frog tape and put out my Christmas decorations.

In the process of painting the columns, I pulled off the navy trim pieces. For some odd reason, woodpeckers LOVE the navy wood trim and pecked holes in two of the columns, one of them repeatedly. I bought some PVC trim (maybe the woodpeckers won't like it?) and will try out some plastic fusion spray paint on it before attaching the trim to the columns in the spring.

I also stained the decking after Mr M powerwashed it.

And sometime this winter, if I have nothing else to do (hah!), I'll bring in the porch swing and paint it.

Before:

After:

What do you think of the door color?