Time to ReStore Some Light

One big issue with our kitchen and laundry rooms is that they are very dark. The kitchen has no windows (the laundry has one small one), so not much outside light gets through to them on a regular basis. Even after painting and cleaning them both up, they still needed some sort of connection with the outside.

Originally, the kitchen was the back of the house. There is a large window-sized opening that now opens into our addition. Before the addition, the window would have been a nice view into the backyard. We love the giant addition and the space it gives us, we just kind of miss what could have been a bright element of the original space.

To remedy this, I have been searching for a replacement for this guy.

That kind of dirty looking door is the back door out of our kitchen/laundry room. It is a dull space that lives on the same wall as our washer and dryer. This picture might help orient you.

That little window is the same one that has the two bright yellow curtains on the inside of the window. 

This is obviously not a space we use very often. It is on the opposite side of the addition then the porch, meaning it gets kind of left out. Honestly, if we didn't have the hose over there, we would probably never go over there at all.

Thankfully, the door itself could be very useful. It would be a perfect area for a door with a window! For the past six months, I have been visiting our local ReStore looking for just that. A 31.5in x 72in. door with a window that would brighten up our kitchen and laundry room. I even bought two doors... they ended up not fitting and we had to return them. I had almost given up hope.

Then, as it happens, Mom came to town. Mom is really good at walking in somewhere and going, "Oh, would this work?" and it's totally what you've been looking for for six months. We stopped by the ReStore on a whim and guess what.

The first door she walked up to.

"I bet this would fit"

Of course it did.

The door was then quickly purchased for the exorbitant price of $15, loaded into the car, and brought home.

Scott began by taking the old door down.

We then had to line up the new door and see how difficult it would be to hang. We ended up using the old hinges to make this part of the process a little easier.

 

There was old weather stripping at the bottom of the door which would make it too low for the frame, so we took that off next. It was well past it's prime, so it would have been replaced anyway.

We then attached it to the hinges that were already hung and checked it for fit. It was actually level and fit really well the first try. Huzzah!

I took the door knobs off of the old door and brought them to Scott who started to assemble them again in the new door. As he worked on that, I observed that the door needed a little bit of love. The windows were kind of dirty and there were a few dents in the metal. This little guy cracked us up, though.

Obviously a little past it's prime.

After one door knob was assembled, he re-drilled the receiving hole in the frame because these fixtures were going to be higher than they were originally. He then added the other knob and repeated the process. 

When it was all together, it felt like a breath of fresh air in the kitchen. It doesn't seem like it would make a huge difference, but this is what the kitchen felt like the next day with no lights on.

I know, it still looks dark, but it's really a huge step in the right direction for lightening up this space (because think about how dark it was before the window. It was a cave kitchen). One of the best parts is that it acts as a viewing window for the birds nest that is built into the soffit of the roof. We can check on the bird family any time now!

Since it's been up, I have also given it a nice, clean coat of white paint so it doesn't feel so second hand. It really does feel like a new door! Eventually I'll paint the outside of the door, but since that isn't something we can really see on a regular basis, I'm going to leave it how it is for the time being.

This is not the only door adventure we have had lately. Stay tuned for more updates!

Finally Hung Out to Dry

One of the many ongoing projects around here has been the Little Laundry Room that Could.  When we moved in, it was not a very welcoming space for doing an unpleasant task.

I was able to paint the walls (which I talked about in it's first appearance on this blog), but there were still a couple of other little things that I felt it needed to be considered 'done'.

I started with a cute sign.

These are just some letters I picked up from Hobby Lobby on sale %50 off. A couple of layers of yellow spray paint and they were really popping. Scott hung them up on the wall and I was on to the next task.

Also while I was at Hobby Lobby, I picked up two sheets of yellow duck tape. I took my hole punch (that you might remember from the shell light) and cut out a bunch of circles.

They helped turn this

Into this

I also used a 3/4 yard of fabric I used my 40% off mobile coupon for and made some cute curtains. These were just hemmed and held up by some clips on the back. The fabric was $3 b/c of the coupon and I had the hooks from another project that I didn't use them for.

Some laundry themed art was added to some Goodwill frames that I made over the same way as these. They were then added to the other wall.

I even put a little bird collage that I had made in the old apartment and hung it on the little handle to get to the fuse box just for added color. It just comes right off for accessibility, though.

I bought some baskets from Michaels for 50% off and they now hold all of our non-reusable dinnerware for entertaining.

Last but not least, I grabbed a giant canvas and made a PLAY DIRTY sign (har har! Get it? CAUSE IT'S A LAUNDRY ROOM!), and suspended it from the ceiling. I did this because something sitting on the ground would be both in the way and a fire hazard. This way, it only blocked the ugliness from the view that people would be looking from most (the kitchen). This is before.

And here is the after

We made sure to leave plenty of room between it and the water heater.

And that's it! The only other two things that we might touch on in here are:

-Replacing the door on the right (that goes to the backyard) with one that has a window for added light and openness. We've been mostly looking at the Restore to see if we get lucky, but nothing so far.

-Putting in some sort of new flooring. This probably won't happen for a long while, though, so covering the checkered patters with rugs works. It also keeps us off of the really cold floor that the room has, at least during the winter.



I'm so happy that it's done! I really don't mind people seeing my laundry room now, which is a big step up from when we moved in. What do you think, is redoing a laundry room worth the time and effort? Let me know in the comments!

Taking Care of Some Dirty Laundry

As much as we love our kitchen, there is still something haunting us from around the corner. The laundry room.

It peeks around the corner at us and taunts us with it's horrible tan/yellow walls and outdated teal cabinets. Thankfully, it does have a window, but it's obscured by all of our laundry detergent (which need to find a new home), so the only light in the room comes from a blob of unstylishness hanging from the ceiling.

Sunday afternoon I decided to tackle this as a quick project. Scott took down the metal cabinets on the far wall (which we are going to use in the garage as storage), and that already helped by 150%. I then found some white paint in the stockpile that the previous owner left behind and slapped it on the walls. It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint will do in a room that initially looked so dirty.

I then remembered seeing a light that I had pinned. I had been wanting to make it, but wasn't sure what room it would look best in. I realized that since it doesn't have a shade, it would be a nice addition to the dark laundry room. I followed the tutorial and had it done in about 20min. (It was so easy to make, I want to make another one for somewhere else in the house, or even the back porch!). I gave it a quick spray with some oil rubbed bronze that I had left over and we put it up. So far, the room was looking so much cleaner and a much better place to clean laundry in.

But the space needed something. I found a gallon of a nice dark gray/blue color at Lowes for $5.00 and decided to make a bold statement. Stripes. I measured 11" from the ceiling, marked out where I wanted them to go, then started taping. After one good coat of paint, I peeled the tape (while the paint was still wet for the best lines). Sooooo satisfying.

After making my two top stripes, I then decided on two slightly smaller ones for the bottom of the room, to add some interest. I really like how it turned out.

Eventually, that back wall is going to have open shelving for our laundry detergent, and I would love to find some cute art to go on the striped wall, but for now, it's just nice to have a room that isn't gross looking.

What makes it feel even better is that David and Scott put the pendants light up in the kitchen!

They are dimmable and woooooonderful! We love them. They make the room feel both cozy and functional!

Together, the rooms looks leaps and bounds better than the day we moved in.

Nothing like a short project to make you love your house more. Have you ever done a project in a day that makes you not dislike a room?