Mudroom Upgrade

Hello all. After deciding to move the laundry into its own room, we took a harder look at the new mudroom to see what would make it welcoming and useful.

Our first idea was to put back the small utility sink that we had next to the washer and dryer. This would keep open the rest of the space while giving us a place for washing brushes, etc. One trouble we had was with the water supply lines. We tried to use a brass fitting to redirect the intakes downward but couldn't get them not to leak.

Then we hit on the idea of building a custom shelf to cover the distance between the sink and wall and give us a place to keep soap and paper towels. We matched the non-90-degree angle of the sink's backsplash and drilled through the metal to attach the shelf.

 

All fine and good, we tried this out for a bit. At the same time we realized that a larger sink we'd planned to use in the laundry room wouldn't work. The bowl is too low and the drain pipe and supply lines are too high to fit. And raising the sink would make it uncomfortably high. Why not use it in the mudroom instead of this micro sink?

We had the same supply line issue with this bigger sink and came up with the same solution--to build and attach a shelf. This required a little more finesse because the shelf would hit higher on the wall, going over a cover plate for an outlet.

Aside from needing drill bits that could go through the heavy duty metal, we broke out this corded drill because the batteries on our cordless were no match for this project.

 

A side project to this was designing a cover for the box with the water supply lines and drain for the washing machine. We didn't want to lose these and wanted to be able to pour water down the drain occasionally to keep it from drying out. But we also didn't want to leave this open and unsightly.

The little door we installed matches the wall color, and we added a small handle as a flourish. Finding screws small enough to attach the hinge to 1/4-inch plywood was tough, and we ended up using slightly longer screws and cutting off the excess that poked through.

 

Another component of the project was doing something to cover up the water heater. We couldn't put anything permanently around it, obviously, in case we needed to gain access. We tried several cloth options (imagine a shower curtain) and one of peg board. Nothing seemed right and the latter was too big/imposing.

What if we made it a snug fit and painted yellow to match the walls and have it blend in? 

 

A chair and a small shoe rack have been the finishing touches.

And again here's a video version of the final result.

Until next time.

Another floor bites the dust

 

Hello all. After the diversion of the bathroom door we turned our attention to the one room that remained untouched, that is if you don't count becoming a repository for tools and stuff.

It's been a long time, but the room looked like this when we bought the place.

The carpet was long gone and even though the paint color on the walls was fairly mild we put on a coat of primer in part to bring the spots of new drywall up to the same level.

We followed that with a new color from Sherwin Williams--Balmy--a nice, light blue.

Then it was time to turn to cast our gaze downward. We put down the luan boards to raise the level to the rest of the floor and then covered it with our standard red paper for squeaks.

Then it was Pine Time! 

This is still unfinished but at least it's installed. We're even getting a little faster at this part of the project. Or maybe we benefited from this being the smallest room in the house.

If you're more of an "experiential" learner, then below are some short videos that recap the same steps above. We'd recommend you watch them without the sound because there's some heavy background noise in several of them (laundry machine, heavy winds). Enjoy.

Until next time.

That's a-door-able

Hello all. Picking up from the closet door post, we tackled one of the last projects to really finish off the upstairs bathroom. We're unsure why the builders installed the only pocket door in the house, but we wanted to change it to a standard hinged door.

One thing that makes this easier than it might have been was a cheap template to follow to router the cutouts for the hinge in the frame and on the door.

Simple, right? Two problems arose when we tried to attach everything. First, despite our best planning we'd put the hinge cutout on the wrong side of the door. The only way to continue down that path would have been to flip the door, as we found in this image.

We weren't thrilled about that idea. The other problem was that the door was too wide for the opening. Fortunately one thing solved both problems. We cut 1/4 inches off the side with the hinge cutout and then re-routered the door.

As we moved the door into position we found another problem. A couple of the cutouts on the frame didn't quite match up and needed to be deeper. We would normally have used the router but with door still attached by one hinge we lacked the space to maneuver. Fortunately we had received this grinder as a gift early in the renovation.

We used router bits and then this sanding bit to carefully deepen the cutout on the frame.

It threw up quite a mess of sawdust but did the trick.

On the other side of the door we installed a narrow piece that would act as the stopper to keep the door from swinging too far.

With the door firmly on its hinges and this piece in place we had a functioning door.

We even had double security of a sort. ; ) 

Not really because our final steps included sealing up that side of the door and installing hardware for the handle.

And here's the final result.

Until next time.