Corkboard in the cabinet

 Our cabinet had a wasted little space on the bottom since that is where the furnace is so we decided to add a little cork board to the space. It can only be seen when the door is open but could be a nice spot to put something - maybe a calendar, takeout menus, a list of phone numbers, tickets to upcoming events - who knows? For show, we pinned our tickets for the Mother Earth News Fair in June.

Laundry Room Circuit Breaker Panel

The circuit breaker panel that is located on the laundry room wall is kind of an eye sore so we decided to try make it blend in a little bit. First of all, the breaker sits about 3/8's of an inch off the wall so we had to install a frame around the outside. Here is a picture installing that.

The face of the breaker was taken up to shop to spray it with some primer in prep for painting.

Here is what it looks like with the primed face put back in place and the frame painted.

Next up came a lot of coats of paint on the door.

 

 This looked better but we still wanted to tie it in with the vintage look of the room. To do this we found a font we liked on the computer for the words "Circuit Breaker" in script form. A couple of minutes with the paint and the words were up on the panel.

Laundry room cabinet door

 We finished up with the door that covers the side of the furnace. It was built so there is a cabinet above for storage and a way to change the filters below. The door is actually two doors. As you can see below, the frame opens for filter access.

 Then when this is closed you can't see the furnace, just the storage above.

 Then there is another door that swings the opposite direction off the frame like a normal cabinet door.

 The outer frame door is held in place by a deadbolt at the top. This door will only be used when changing air filters or accessing the furnace.

 And here is the finished product:

Grouting the Tile in the Laundry Room

 We put in the grout this evening on the tiles in the laundry room. First step was to get everything cleaned up and push the grout into all of the cracks between the tiles. Under the washer and dryer were a little tough to get to.

After doing this we waited for about a half hour and came back with sponge to get things cleaned up. Here is a before and after picture of the area between the doors. We will wipe the haze real quick before we head to bed tonight. The final grout should dry a little lighter in color than this.

Tiling the Laundry Room

 We tiled the laundry room last week before Tyler left for Germany again. It still needs to be grouted but all the tiles are cut and in place.

Tile Backerboard

We are getting ready to lay the tiles on the floor in the laundry room. To do this we needed to lay a tile backer board on the floor. The original floor was two layers of 3/4" subfloor. One of them was removed and we added a 1/4" backer board and 1/4" tile to make it just about level with the kitchen wood floor. Since we are only using a 1/4" backer board it was put down with a layer of thinset under it. Here you can see a picture of one piece down and the thinset being troweled out for the next piece

New Hinges on the Laundry Room Door

I don't know what someone was thinking when they originally installed the door to the laundry room. The hinge mortice was just taken out of the door and the hinge was sitting flush in the door jam? It also looks like the mortice was chewed out by a beaver. These are the projects that we spend a couple of hours on and when you are done everything almost looks the same. Here is a picture of what the original mortice looked like on the door (not very good looking).

Here is what the door jam looked like (nothing was cut out).

 

After the old mortice area was chiseled out.

It is a little hard to see in this picture but there is a new piece of wood that is glued into the hole cut out where hinge mortice needs to go. There is another board holding it in place while the glue dries.

The new board is sanded flush with the door and the new mortice is cut.

The door was then planed to get a perfect fit (it used to be a little tight). You can see where the deadbolt on the original door was filled in.

Here is the finished hinge in place in the door jam. Looks much better. Still need to take a picture of the door hung.

Coat Hanger for the Laundry Room

There is a little space on the back wall in the laundry room for some coat hooks. We looked around for something that we would like but did not find anything, so we decided to make something. We just used a pine board with a trim top piece and a bead around the bottom. Here you can see it before painting.




A couple of coats of paint later.

And this is what it will look like with the hooks attached. We will wait to put it up until we get another coat of paint on the walls.

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.