When we redid the Laundry Room, the air register in the floor was scuffed up and rusty. A new 4’x10’ one is about $8 and in oil-rubbed bronze, about $16. Instead of buying new, we re-used.
We pulled it up, cleaned it really well and spray painted with Rustoleum Universal Metallic oil-rubbed bronze spray paint we already had. The whole project took about 15 minutes.
Easy-peasy and, my favorite, FREE. It looks great in the new Laundry Room.
We finished redoing the Laundry Room!
This is the before. What you can’t see here is the blue countertop, the scratched up sink, the damaged walls or the stained, peeling, disgusting linoleum floors. You also can’t see inside the cabinet where previous homeowners scrawled
BLOCKBUSTER 785-4652
and
BANK OF AMERICA 800-468-5000 #1850-68775499
in Black Sharpie marker. No kidding.
It was amazing to me what the simple addition of the molding on the cabinets made.
There was this wasted space between the door to the room and the washing machine—like a closet with no door. There was a clothes rod that hung on the bottom portion of the white framing below. (I failed to get a before picture) We use the rod for drying clothes, and wanted to raise it up to allow for hanging clothes space after we added built in shelves. We talked about ripping out the wood support, but then would have to contend with patching the walls. Ryan had the great idea to just “beef” up the framing. He added a 2x10 and then a 2x4 and attached decorative trim.
It gives it a cabinetry feel and it also made a great place to display this 1916 Singer sewing machine that belonged to my grandmother.
the space below the rod was empty. We kept a laundry hamper here.
Based on this inspiration, http://pinterest.com/pin/37999190575828656/, we built this.
Ryan says it’s working great!
We also replaced the countertop, sink and faucet and tiled the backsplash. We tiled the floor, did wall repair and added bead board to each side of the room and added molding to the top of the cabinets.
The tile was a great find. Costco for $5.55 a square foot. It has travertine, glass and emperador dark marble. The SAME marble that we used as an accent in the kitchen backsplash and to tile the fireplace in the Hearth Room: the areas that adjoin the Laundry!
And the countertop? $40 at Sutherlands! It was the last piece they had. We use the galvanized bucket on the counter to keep our dust rags in.
We are super pleased with the end result.
We loved our headboard. But in our Master Bedroom is this weird niche in the wall, and it just seemed awkward and weird. It was time for a new mattress, so we decided to move this bed to the guest room and get something new that was lower than the bottom trim on the niche.
Once that proved impossible, we tried the bed without a headboard.
That was a little too dorm room for me, so we decided to make a headboard out of fabric.
It’s a subtle difference, but a very important one, and now the hole makes more sense.
We got fabric, 2 inch dense foam and batting from Joann. All on sale. We had talked about tufting the piece, but because it would be covered up, didn’t want to go to the trouble. We wound up finding this great fabric that has a tufted look.
First, we laid out the fabric and foam and then cut the fabric roughly 5 inches bigger than the foam.
Next we cut out the batting to the same size as the fabric
Then, we got a plywood board from Lowe’s (around $7) and cut it the same size as the foam.
Next, we used spray adhesive to attach the foam to the board and then layered it up. Fabric, batting, foam and board. And then stapled everything together: just like recovering a seat cushion.
The finished product.
Then, using Flush Mounts, we hung the headboard on the wall, making sure it was level.
The entire project cost about $75 and took about 3 hours from start to finish. It looks and feels great. I would do this project again and do it on a larger scale if there wasn’t a big hole over my bed.
Under the deck we have a patio, which is a perfect place to sit except for a couple hours in the evening when the sun blares in. We loved the look and practicality of outdoor curtains, but not the price.
After a trip to Lowe’s, less than $70 and an afternoon, we wound up with these.
For the actual curtain, we used painters drop cloths attached to clip-on curtain rings. The drop cloths are pre-hemmed canvas that come in a variety of sizes and weights.
Here’s how we did it.
For each curtain we used
We screwed the street elbow onto the pipe, then screwed the floor flange onto the street elbow
Before attaching the second floor flange, we slid the curtain rings onto the pipe.
Next, we determined how high we needed the rod to be. We did not want the curtains touching the patio or the ground.
Then, Ryan attached the rod to the outside of the deck, making sure it was level. We chose a shorter rod, because we only needed the curtain to be 4 feet wide to give us the sun blockage in the afternoon. This set up is strong and sturdy enough to support a much longer pipe. You could do chin ups on this bar (…you could, I can’t.)
After the rod was hung, it was a simple matter of attaching the fabric to the curtain rings
and then putting in some brass cup hooks for the tie backs.
They’ve been up for over a month now and are doing very well. We’ve had some big winds and thunderstorms, which they have been fine through. Unfortunately, they have been getting regularly watered by the sprinklers recently. There is a bit of mildew on them, but nothing horrible. I plan on bringing them in this winter. I’ll give them a good bleaching and treat them with a water repellant spray before rehanging them next spring.
Not only can we open them up to block the sun, we like the finishing touch it gives to the space. A fun and easy project!
Linked to A Bowl Full of Lemons and Wow Us Wednesday.
