Laundry Room Revamp

Here are a couple of "before" shots of our laundry room. It was actually pretty cool. We have some shelves in there, with some hanging space for clean clothes that need to be hung up. We have a sink and a cabinet, and have to share the space with our water softener and water meter.

The main issue was laundry baskets. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, YouTuber Jordan Page has some cool ideas, including a great system on laundry. But after implementing her system, it felt like our floor space was very much taken up with laundry baskets, and we wanted something more organized.

I made this out of a sheet of plywood (dimensions specific to our space) and some 1x2's, made to fit these laundry baskets. I had to cut out the backsplash first to make room for this, and then basically just set it on top of the counter and caulked the gaps on the bottom (I also had to cut a hole in the top for the ceiling vent). But it's just a basic box - doesn't even have a back - I just used glue and my nail gun (with 2-inch finishing nails) to make it.

See how it basically just sits on the counter, caulked all the way around

The vent in just barely visible in this shot

Something else we needed was some additional shelving. Though we had two full walls of shelves, it still seemed like we were just stacking things everywhere. So I lowered the shelf over the main wall (it was too high anyway), and added one above it for more storage (which also gave us space for more pantry storage - especially for big items).

From the other side

Last, but not least, we thought it would be good to have extra space to fold clothes in there, so I built a folding table to attach to the wall. I made it out of one of the extra doors that came from when we replaced all our doors. It was trickier than making it with solid wood, because I had to add reinforcements at the edges so I didn't have big hollow spaces. I also used extra door hinges I had lying around from that project, and the rest of the scrap 2x3 from my ladder project for the support pieces underneath.

Table up, with dirty laundry baskets underneath

Here are a couple pictures of the supports. It's basically a cross piece that is screwed to the wall, (and which holds the top piece the folding part is hinged to) and some folding brackets attached to the support piece (also with hinges).

 Brackets folded in

Unfolded to support table top

Here's what it looks like folded down - it doesn't take up much floor space at all.

Table folded down, with laundry baskets in front

I almost forgot - I bought an HVLP (high volume low pressure) paint gun a while back from Harbor Freight, because I wanted to see how it would work. It was inexpensive, so I said what the heck? Unfortunately, it needed an air compressor with more power than mine had, so the gun sat dormant for more than a year. Until this project! I recently fixed up an air compressor given to me by a friend (upfitted the supply line with copper tubing instead of rubber, which kept slipping off). I used it on this folding table, and have also used it on a couple more projects since then, and love it. It works wonderfully, and I'm excited to keep honing my ability to use it on more stuff.

Here's a panorama, so you can see the whole space in one shot.

Command Center

We've been looking for a place to focus for chores, calendaring, etc., so I made a command center board to hang on the wall. The clipboard stuff comes from a YouTuber named Jordan Page, who has some cool organization and frugal living tips (check out her laundry, clipboards, and block scheduling videos). 

This is something I've done a million times - make a frame. The tricky part was after I'd cut all the wood and dry fit it together, I had to make the rabbet. A rabbet is a cut out along the edge of a piece of wood, which gives it an L shape. It is often used for insetting glass in picture frames. In this case, I added a piece of hardboard to it for a back (glued in place). To create the rabbet, I used my makeshift router table, with a fence I made from some scrap wood and a straight edge, clamped to my router table.

Here is a view of the command center in all its glory:

It has the calendar, a metal plate for magnets / important papers (recently used for holding movie and theater tickets), the clipboards (summer kid chores), and I attached some pieces of PVC pipe with tape on the bottom to hold "chore sticks" (extra chores they get to choose, instead of being assigned). They have to do two chore sticks a day in addition to their regular chores. Definitely watch Jordan's video for more info on all this stuff. Here are some close-ups of the charts and chore sticks. The "Kid Zones" rotate each week (we have to help Aurora with her zone).

And lastly, here is a view of the command center on our wall. This is near the kitchen, in view as you come in from the garage or front door.

Blanket Ladder

This project was super basic, and I actually didn't get any in-progress pictures. Sorry about that. But here is the finished product. Basically, it's a ladder made out of 2x3 wood and painted with spray paint and spray lacquer. We got the idea from some friends who had something similar in their living room that we liked.

If you're interested in making one, here are the dimensions: each side piece is 6 feet long, and the cross pieces are 17" each. To put it together, the top of the first rung is about 3" from the top, then they are 15" from the top of each rung to the top of the next rung. To center the rungs in between the cross pieces, I used a 1/2" scrap of plywood underneath each rung and then  clamped them as they were screwed in place.

Closet Doors

The last golden oak in our house was on the pass-by closet doors in the three upstairs bedrooms. In an effort to match our new doors, rather than buy new doors, I decided to make the existing ones into shaker-style paneled doors, with the help of some hardboard. Here is what they looked like before:

I took some quarter-inch hardboard and cut it down into strips about 3-4 inches in width (can't remember exactly - I mostly eyeballed what looked good, and did that same thing for all of the strips). I then glued and clamped them to the existing doors.

By the way, if you do something like this, I recommend adding some support at the bottom if your door (with the bottom support) has been cut down (mine was hollow at the bottom with just veneers showing). This makes it easier to clamp down your panels. Also, I recommend using quarter-inch plywood instead of hardboard. Hardboard doesn't work as well when painting, it doesn't sand well, and it just kind of squishes at the end if it gets hit. I won't use it for anything like this again.

After I got the panels glued and filled and sanded, I painted with my favorite: General Finishes Milk Paint, Dark Chocolate color. After that dried, I added a polyurethane topcoat, and added the door pulls (went with a nickel inset handle - the old ones were shiny brass).

I then of course ran into some issues with finding a door glide that would accommodate the increased width of the door, so I couldn't be choosy. But I finally found one on Amazon. Here is the finished result.