2023 One Room Challenge Week 2: We Have Cabinets!
Last Fall, we began to renovate our tiny mudroom and slightly bigger laundry room by combining them into one for the One Room Challenge. It turned out that moving plumbing and electrical was going to take way longer than we had anticipated, so, here we are, ready to finish this project! Let me show you where we are at week 2 of the Spring 2023 ORC.
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We’ve made some big progress on our new laundry and mud room.
The biggest is that we installed the pre-made cabinets. I went back and forth a few dozen times on how best to lay this out, but we decided that sliding the washer and dryer, stacked, back into the far corner and having the majority of that wall for cabinetry was our best option.
As I’ve explained in prior posts, we had the plumbing and electric moved so that the outlets were tucked behind the washer/dryer units. This meant we would have a smooth space between the countertop and cabinets for a very pretty backsplash tile…more on that next week I hope.
One Small Change, One Big Difference:
One thing I’m pretty happy about is that I figured out that it would be nice to have the countertop, which we’d largely use for folding laundry, a few inches higher than the usual countertop height. That way, we don’t have to lean over while folding clothes for hours each week. Let’s just say I’m feeling all 40 of my years most days. We built a box from 2x4s for the bottom cabinets to sit on top and then secured the cabinets to the box and the wall. Problem solved, low back saved!
One Addition I’m Super Excited About:
Raising the countertops up a couple inches gave us an opportunity to make something I have always wanted…a set of dog bowls that pop out with a toe kick. Somehow, we are always tripping over or knocking into their food and water bowls, but now, the bowls will tuck under the cabinets and come out with a push of our foot. Paul installed the slides and made a platform for the bowls to rest on. All we need to do is add some finishing work and trim and we’ll be able to tuck that problem area away whenever we’re doing laundry.
One Problem I Think We’ve Solved:
When we took down the wall, we found a little surprise…an air return. Now, it has been open/not connected ever since last Fall and we have not noticed any difference in the temperature or airflow on either floor. To me, this means that we do not need to fully replace the airway with a sealed air duct. So, I came up with the solution of running the air through a floor to ceiling cabinet.
I had gotten Paul a cabinet making class last year for Christmas and it has paid off with this project! He made my idea come to life and I’m excited to say we should be ready to install it soon.
Speaking of Cabinetry:
Did you know that we added the kitchen pantry on the adjacent wall to our “little project”? We had already taken the awful sliding doors, which never stayed on their track, many months before we even started this project. I could not take one more day struggling with them.
I designed a new built in pantry, Paul made the boxes and has started on the cabinet doors. Here’s a sneak peak:
I think he’s done a beautiful job with a difficult built in so far. More on this to come!
On Tap for This Week:
Thankfully, our out of town visits are done for now and my week is fairly open. This week I hope to:
- Patch the missing or damaged drywall and ceiling where the wall we took down used to be.
- Figure out what type of design I want to add to the ceiling.
- Install the new light fixtures.
- Install the custom cabinet.
- Stain and seal the countertop.
- Finish and install the sliding door.
I hope that you’ll come back for week 3 of the Spring 2023 ORC and see how far we get. I have a couple other projects to show you this week as well, so stay tuned!
