Not so Extreme Laundry Closet Makeover

Hi friends! Just wanted to pop in and tell y'all about a little (very little) project the hubs and I completed over the course of this week. I may or may not have complained on here before about how ugly my laundry closet is. Yes, I did say laundry closet and not laundry room. This is because A) My sister-in-law corrects me every time I mistakenly call it a room and B) Well because it is by all standards...a closet. All there's room for is the washer and dryer and that is pretty much it. Who needs extra storage am I right? (Said no one ever). *Ahem* anyways, closet or not...that thing was U-G-L-Y. It was a tiny space that was overlooked and forgotten about when we were making our way through painting the house. I mean why bother, right? Who loves doing laundry? Not this girl. This closet is actually off of our breakfast nook in the kitchen and has bifold (not actually sure if that is the correct term or not) doors that conceal its ugliness. So, for the last 2 years I have just kept those doors closed and ignored it by all means necessary (not hard to do because...laundry). SO, as you can probably definitely guess based on the title of this already ridiculously long post...I finally decided that enough was enough! It was time to give that bad boy a makeover. First step, removing the old ugly yellowed utility shelf and patching all the lovely holes it left behind.

That whole process took about 20 minutes or so. (Enter husband with the power tools). Next, that lovely two tone nothingness had to go. Pro's of having a laundry closet? SUPER quick and easy to paint because it's a closet for goodness sake! So, I grabbed some left over oops paint from Home Depot that we had from another project and went to town. Side note: If you are unfamiliar with the term "oops paint" you should definitely become familiar with it. Oops paint (at least that is what they call it at Home Depot) is any gallon of paint that they mix for a customer that they do not end up liking and therefore put it on a discount shelf by the counter and mark it down to $9 for the whole gallon! You cannot beat that. We were lucky enough to find a lovely gray one day and have now used our $9 treasure for two projects. We still have lots left too! The next step was the light. The current light is one of a...dare I say it...fluorescent nature. Yuck, nothing I hate more! Luckily though, the gross thing is hidden up on the front wall where you cannot see it unless you are standing behind the washer and dryer. If you are the kind of weirdo who chooses to spend your time standing back there, then I have nothing to say. You will see my ugly fluorescent light. HOWEVER, thank goodness my awesome husband is an electrical engineer that can do things like wire a new outlet up there for me and hang a much more attractive/cottage friendly piece that his crazy wife found at a yard sale awhile back. Enter, my kiddie chandelier. Yes I know it was probably meant to hang in a little girl's adorable bedroom but I think it works PERFECTLY in this space. Of course since he is so awesome, he even wired it to where I can turn it off and on with the switch that once worked the ugly fluorescent thing. Last step: the shelf. I would love to sit here and tell you that I DIY'ed an awesome wood shelf but I didn't. My lazy self went to Lowes, picked out a $10 floating shelf, and called it done. The only other thing we did which is probably not noticeable to anyone but us was change out the old yellowed outlet and cover for new crisp, clean white ones. Since the thing just HAS to show above the dryer. 

All that to say, we now have a...drumroll, please...NOT SO UGLY LAUNDRY CLOSET! Yes I still hate laundry and no that will never change, but I now actually like to leave those doors open and show off my washer and dryer to the world. It is no longer my Monica closet (Friends fans where you at?!) and I am no longer ashamed. Of course my sign was re-hung because it is my one and only motivation to do laundry. I will leave you with it: Laundry Today or Naked Tomorrow.

Happy Friday you guys and cheers to the weekend!

More Shiplappin'

Hello! Remember when I said summer would be the perfect time for me to blog more? LOL! School starts back in a week and this is my second post for the whole break. So much for that! Needless to say, it has been a busy season and luckily the hubs and I were able to squeeze in one more (cheap) DIY project before it gets even busier! It's no secret that I love shiplap. If I could shiplap my whole house, I would do it in a heartbeat. However, it took us 4 days and a lot of headache to get just one wall done, so that will certainly not be happening. 

SO, most of you know that I had "shiplapped" my mantle awhile ago and settled on painting the rest of the wall white in lieu of continuing with it. 

Well long story short, I decided that wasn't enough. I approached my hubs with the idea this past weekend. I proposed we use the exact same materials as we did for the mantle (a cheaper shiplap alternative) but simply, multiplied. If you didn't catch it in my original shiplapping tutorial, here is what we used instead of actual shiplap or the other popular alternative, tongue and groove boards:

• Six 8x4' Sheets of 1/4 inch Plywood Underlayment (We had to have ours cut down into Twelve 8x2' sheets in order to fit them in the back of my car and transport them home!)

They look like this:

(Peep my donut float making a cameo in the bottom right corner.) 

We got ours at Home Depot for about $12 a piece.

• White Paint

We put a couple coats of Behr Premium Plus Ultra (Say that 5 times fast) Ultra white paint (with nothing mixed in) on the boards. It took about a gallon and a half to finish this project. Please ignore the awkward arm positioning...I have no idea what I was doing at the time.

• Table Saw

Next, the most noisy and time consuming part of this process, cutting the boards. We cut ours into 6 inch wide strips. We left them all at 8 feet long so that we could use some and cut some down later when we knew more exact measurements. Ignore how hideously ugly our garage is...it was raining so we had to move everything indoors.

After we cut the strips, I applied a third and final coat of paint to them (the table saw was a little harsh on some) and we were FINALLY ready to start putting these bad boys on the wall.

This...as you can imagine...was a SLOW process. First, we actually had to remove the existing shiplap so that they would not make the rest of the wall look wonky. Wonky is a term my sister and her friends use all the time and now she has me saying it. I do feel as though it is a great description for this particular instance however. Anywho, we actually had a little laugh after removing the boards because both of us had forgotten that we put them up before re-painting the rest of the wall.

• Hammer, Finishing Nails, A whole lot of patience

Next, the actual assembly. Yay! We had every intention of making a time-lapse video of the whole process but then promptly forgot. Oh well. We used tiny finishing nails to attach the boards to the wall and nickels (sorry cashier at target for requesting $2 in nickels as part of my cash back...it was all for the cause!) to space them out. Who needs actual spacers when you have loose change that you can spend again later...am I right? I apologize in advance for the HORRIBLE lighting. All of this work was basically done at night.

Slowly but surely, board by board, it all came together. One rookie mistake we made that I will warn you about now...we used galvanized finishing nails. Never use galvanized nails when you're working with and handling white wood. By the time we were finished, there were almost more black fingerprints and smudges than there was white paint. Luckily, magic eraser came to the rescue and cleaned it all up for me. I had originally planned to go back with a paintbrush and cover up the little nails, however the more I looked at them showing in all their glory, the more I loved them. I feel like it looks more authentic with them showing and I am all about that! 

Here are some before and afters of the finished product:

It was a lot of work, but oh so worth it! I apologize again for my utter lack of blogging this summer but I promise before you know it, I'll be back at it with all of my favorite fall decor! Thanks for reading and happy friday eve!