Loads of Fun

Yes, I have a lot of catching up to do.  I will get to that eventually.  I just moved all of my photos from my old dying laptop, so it reminded me of so many things that I haven't captured on here.  That can wait.  Today I am going to document the laundry room makeover.  As usual, I didn't take "before" pictures.  Well, pictures of how it looked the day we moved in.  I didn't capture the beauty of the teal laminate countertops and beautiful oak cabinetry.  I always forget "before" pictures.  I think I get so excited that I'm finally doing a project that I lose my mind.  Yeah, that's it.

So here are some "right before" pictures.  This is right before the new counter went in.  We had painted the cabinets and started the trim painting.  Looks like there was one coat of primer on that window molding; hadn't gotten to the baseboards yet I guess.  It makes me tired thinking about all that trim I painted.  I think I've repressed the memories.  But here, you can see the walls pre-Benjamin Moore Hawthorn yellow too.

Next we added the granite countertop.  I know, I know granite in a laundry room - so silly.  Well we were doing the kitchen and bath at the same time, so I just used the same stuff.  Unfortunately, you can't actually see that counter, because it's covered with all the stuff that was probably on the floor just before taking this shot.  Like I said, we were just about to demo the old vinyl floor here.

The photo below is of the kick plate at the bottom of the cabinet.  No, I didn't forget to paint it, it's rubber!  I can see the people who build this house saying, "yeah, we'd like rubber kick plates on all the cabinets in wet areas".  Yep, every bathroom too.

Here's a close up of the monstrosity.  Complete with hair and fuzz.

Next we removed the vinyl.  Corey used his circular saw to cut sections out instead of trying to peel it all out.

Then we added the backer board.

Laid out the tile to see what pattern we liked.  We got the tile at Lowes.  It looks a bit like whitewashed wood.  We decided to off set the tiles by half a tile.

The next step was to place all of the tiles with thin set.  Let it dry.  Then I applied the grout.  We chose a warm gray.

 We added board and batten to the walls at 60 inches tall.  I painted the walls the trim color before adding the trim to make it easier.  We used a material that we sliced in half, so it would fit on top of the baseboards.  Plus it doubled the material for our money.

 Next came a new light from Lowes for $30 to replace the hideous fluorescent light and a subway tile backsplash.

Then a wood counter over the washer and dryer for folding.

Corey built an open cupboard over the sink.  I painted the bead board back Sherwin Williams Hazel and added accessories.

Before.

After.

Ugly stuff hiding behind the door.

Sigh.  It was a lot of work over a long period of time.  We just did a little bit at a time.  I still need to fill the holes in the ceiling from the old light, but we have some other ceiling work to do in the house, so I'll do it all at one time.  I love how it turned out.