It's done! Well, mostly done. The laundry room is fully functioning these days- it's tidy, and organized, and heavenly. It almost makes me want to do laundry... but who would really believe me if I said that?! The laundry room is in a fairly dark spot in the house. The one small window faces West so the lighting is not great for pictures. So apologies for the semi-crappy pictures. I just got a tripod (hooray!) which will allow me to take some better ones soon.
The ReStore cabinets, in Benjamin Moore's Cloud Cover turned out great. We used Ikea's FAGLAVIK knobs in chrome and spray painted the hardware with Rustoleum spray paint in Chrome finish.
We love love love the countertop. It creates a functional space for folding clothes, keeping laundry baskets, etc. And that butcher block is just so darn beautiful. We bought an Ikea NUMERAR countertop in oak, cut it to fit and sealed it.
We also made some cut outs on the far side of the counter in order to access the water shut off valves as well as the plug-ins for the washer and dryer. Not the prettiest, but the access was important. We also used some of Grant's Grandma's old white ceramic pots over the more obvious cut out. They hold detergent, oxyclean, and one acts as a trash can.
For the open shelving we used a few cedar boards that we've been carrying around since we lived in Texas. (We were out on a walk one evening and met a family whose fence was taken out by a drunk driver. They were throwing away the beautiful boards and were more than happy to let us take a few off their hands- score!) We cut the boards to fit the space and sealed them with a polyurethane spray. The spray worked okay, but I wouldn't go that route again. Too much money for not enough product. Liquid is better.
The baskets were an old Target clearance buy- they were each around $6. I wish I had four so that I could add some on the top shelf. In the future, I may repurpose these two and come up with four different baskets to put here. But for now, they work great as laundry baskets for random pieces of clothes that get taken off downstairs (namely, Will's pj's almost every day).
We supported the shelves with Ikea's EKBY VALTER brackets, painted with BM Cloud Cover to match the cabinets.
The pantry cabinet works perfectly to hold our vacuum and other cleaning supplies. We're planning on building a small shelf at the top of that cabinet as well to hold paper towels, etc.
Will is a big fan. And so am I because the vacuum isn't constantly up in my bizness all day (well, except for when Will drags it out to play clean up... always resulting in the need for an actual clean up).
The far left cabinet houses "diaper station" as well as Grant's collection of cloths. Give that man a microfiber cloth and you'll make his day.
And the center cabinet holds the laundry supplies (though mostly just extras because the detergent and oxyclean are on the counter below), as well as trash bags and the occasional room-de-smelling item.
We decided to forgo a custom sink cabinet (good call, us...) and bought this Ove Utility Sink Cabinet from Costco. It was on clearance (huzzah!) for just under $200. We somehow managed to plumb it ourselves (enter choir of angels) which saved some cash as well.
It feels so so good to have our laundry room back (and fewer tools littering the kitchen and hallway as well...) I can't believe how it looked before! All that crap fit easily into the room once there was a little order to the madness. Well, except the tree... (Which went outside for the summer and even started growing a pomegranate! Until Will discovered it and promptly pulled it off ... sad day).
While the laundry room is functional, there are still a lot of odds and ends to finish up. Getting rid of that light fixture is #1, finishing up trim (the plywood holding up the countertop is naked), crown molding, etc. comes in at #2, and a window treatment (maybe faux roman shade?) is #3.
Oh yeah.
