Laundry Room Progress

Work has slowly been progressing on the back laundry room. Trim was added around both of the doors.

All of the trim was given a coat of primer paint.

Blocks were installed around the room where the wall meet the ceiling to support the installation of the crown molding.

The existing back door had a dog door cut into it so we went through the trouble of putting in a new door. My first hopeful thought would be that I could hang the new doors on those hinges but of course I had to replace the whole frame. The new one has divided panes instead of the stained glass piece.

Paint was put on all of the closet parts before putting everything back in. You can also see that the crown molding has been put up.

A new trim piece was put up as a header on both of the doors. The tape is holding the endcaps in place while their glue sets. You can also see in this picture that we have been able to get some paint on the crown molding and the new back door.

 

Laundry Room Progress

Kristen has been working on getting things caulked, the nail holes filled and a first coat of paint on things. Because the wood on the wainscoting is a knotty pine we are putting on coat of a sealing primer before the trim paint. Here you can see some of the nail holes filled prior to sanding, priming and painting.

Here are the shelves removed and painted.

Here you can see some of the wainscoting with the first coat of paint on. We still need to get the joint compound up on the walls and the texture put on.

Next up is getting some wainscoting on the last wall. The first step is to cut out strips from the wall to create a nailing strip for the wainscoting. I used to cut things out like this with the utility knife, now I use a small circular saw with the depth set at 1/2", this makes a much cleaner and quicker cut.

 

Once the strip was removed it was replaced with 1/2" plywood that will act as the nailing surface for the smaller wainscoting panels. You can also see the first small piece of chair rail that is placed on the wall.

Here the baseboard and baseboard cap has been added as well as the wainscoting and chair rail on the last wall in the room.

Here is a view of the other end of the wall. The trim around the door has been started but there is still some work that needs to be done on the furnace side as well at the header at the top of the door. I will work to get the small trim pieces complete between the door trim and the wall before the weekend.

The shelves in the laundry are installed

In the space between the furnace and the hot water heater there is some shelving. Unlike other places in the house we did non-movable shelving here because you have to be able easily take it out and remove both the left and right side of the closet for access. Some brackets were cut and placed under each shelf.

If you look closely just below the center shelf is the joint between the upper and lower access panels. There are four bolts that hold each panel in place.

Here are the finished shelves tucked beside the washer and dryer. They should be pretty useful in this room.

Back to work on the house...laundry room design

 After a couple of long weekends for work in Germany and doing other things around the holiday we have started to tackle the back laundry room. This is one of the first rooms that we worked on in the house but we did not have much a vision when we did it so it was never complete. Here are the plan views of what we are planning on doing. Basically there will be a wall built around the furnace and hotwater heater that will include a number of removable panels for access and shelves for storage.

The first picture shows the plan view of the room. You can see the door sweep of the door coming from the kitchen (the back door is not drawn in). You can see the wall that is built around the furnace (two blocks with the circle next to it) and the hotwater heater (double circle) between these to units is a set of shelves. We will keep the table overtop of the washer and dryer which you can see poking out just a little from under the table.

 

 Here is an elevation view taken as you look to the left after coming through the kitchen door. You can see the washer and dryer under the table on the back wall. The new light switch location is shown as well as the door that will access storage and the air handler filter.

Here is another elevation view looking at the door that comes in from the kitchen. You can see the shelves that are located between the hotwater heater and the furnace. At this point in drawing up the plans I decided to add some wainscoting so that I could hide some of the access panels.

Kitchen Drawers finally complete

 For the built in kitchen cabinets we had two drawers left to finish. These had fronts on them to support our historic home tour last summer but we never got around to building the drawers with all of the upstairs remodel going on. Neither of them are too wide because they are on the end beside the dishwasher. One of them is normal and the other is designed to hold the cookie sheets and muffin pans. Here you can see the sheet drawer built up.

Here is both of the new drawers installed.

We were a little concerned that all of the sheets would not fit into the drawer but we were pleasantly surprised. Here is a picture of all of the sheets finally put where they should be.

Cabinet for the Kitchen

Because we don't have that many cabinets in the kitchen we are building a free standing unit in the corner between the sink unit and the bathroom. This is where the dry sink is in this picture.

The basic design is shown in the drawing below but we will be adding some additional features that are not shown.

Now that I am out of the house with all new construction I am a little slow in getting pictures of the progress so the first picture shows most of the bottom unit complete.

The brackets between the top and bottom unit are made from two 3/4" boards laminated up. Here is a picture of them being cut out and smoothed out using the oscillating spindle sander.

 These are pieces that are cut to be added to the top and bottom of the brackets.

We are planning on doing the countertop in zinc sheet. This is a very traditional material for a countertop. The sheet was cut and bent up using a sheet metal break. The sheet will wrap a plywood base but first the corners have to be soldered together. The zinc sheet will start out shiny but then will turn to a dark pewter color over time. You can see in the picture below a sheet section that is new and one that has been forced to age.

Here you can see how the sheet is bent to fit around the wood core.

Here is a corner before being soldered.

 And after being soldered. It does not look good now but it should blend in quite well once it is sanded and buffed down.

Fridge bottom trim and more cabinet trim

 We're still not 100% finished with the refrigerator and have been working on the base.

 This will slide underneath the box-like structure to give it some feet and support. This will also help in making it look like a piece of furniture. Kristen got to try out the new sander to hit some of the inside curves.

 The cabinets over by the sink are continuing to come along. Tyler worked on the area around the dishwasher which is a little tricky because the door needs to open. We also did not permanently attach it in case a new dishwasher needs to be installed at some point in the future. The trim is held together with L brackets and is removable (though not easily).

 Here you can see the dishwasher door pivoting open and the trim staying in place. It looks normal when the door is in the closed position.

Kitchen Overview

Here are a few pictures of the kitchen in general so you can get an overview of how things are coming.