Ahh. The laundry room.
As you can see from the photo to the left, it was a bit of a clean slate – if a clean slate had pipes everywhere and outlets in opposite locations from where they should be.
There were a lot of steps in this small project. To really plan it out, I had to think through all of the details. I needed to consider the foundation: what were the state of the walls, the floor, the window, the electrical, and the light fixture? How could the narrow room be organized with washing machines and cabinets? And how would I work with or around the radiator?
According to the floor plans, this room has always been the laundry room. I’m sure it looked different ways at different points, but it has always been a laundry room.
To start, the walls were in rough shape and needed to be patched and painted. 2 of the walls are still plaster, the other 2 had drywall over them (I don’t ask why anymore with this house; I just take things as they are).
I also spent a lot of time trying to strip paint off of the window frame. Like weeks. Don’t make this mistake. Spend the money to get them retrimmed if you don’t like it. Eventually, I gave up and just painted over them anyway.
I also purchased a design from a freelance design company. It took forever and was probably a waste of $275. However, I am much more confident as a result of this project. I went out, bought my own cabinets at Home Depot, painted them black, and bought the hardware on Amazon. As with most things in this house, the walls were not plum and so we needed to hang braces behind the cabinets to get them square with the floor, as well as shim some of the fronts of them.
The radiator is in rough shape. It works – but the many layers of paint from overtime are chipping and peeling. The great news, is the lead tests don’t come back positive, but the space in between cylinders is so narrow, I can’t do a good job cleaning, sanding, or painting it. So, I created a radiator cover instead. I don’t know if I like it, but it’s fine for now.
There is more to come on this project. Stay tuned.
The laundry machines could have gone side by side, but they would have been too close for comfort to the radiator. Thank heavens I have the luxury of high ceilings.
I bought some cabinets from Home Depot and painted them black. I also found some gold hardware on Amazon.
The radiator cover I built.