Showing posts with label Laundry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laundry. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
All Filled Up!
The paint cabinet is filled and I couldn't love it more!
Warning: A color happy room is ahead...
Our laundry room is in a deep, dark and windowless corner of our home. And just like most rooms, it is always evolving. Over the past year, our laundry room has been housing our paint supplies, but in very unorganized piles. In an effort to finish organizing our final storage rooms, we finally focused on the paint pile by building ourselves a custom cabinet (read more about that here).
When we built and painted the cabinet, I really intended on blasting the cabinet with a coat of color. However, with the recently papered sewing/folding nook, and the other colors being used within the space, white (although it can be trite) was the way for us to go.
You see how those colors just shine through the cabinet doors? As I sit and work at my desk, I look over and this is my new view. Before I would just shut the door to the room, but now that I have taken the time to do some laundry and clean up clutter, I am loving the new scenery!
The uppers were filled with the main painting essentials; the jars of colorful paint, brushes, tools, swatch books, etc...
The jar labels are created from an Avery template I downloaded into Microsoft Word.
Quick tip: Place the full jars of paint near the front to create a clean visual appearance. Half filled jars can live near the back of the bunch.
We have been using jars of paint to hold the remaining contents of our gallons and quarts for the past few years now. I did receive one comment awhile back that paint shouldn't be stored in glass, but I can't personally figure out why because we have been loving this solution like crazy. The paint stays fresh, I can quickly see the colors I have and it has reduced the amount of shelving space that the over-sized cans take up. I am a fan.
On the top shelf, I used vases and jars to hold my different sized paint brushes.
Quick tip: Check out this You-Tube video for cleaning paint brushes. It was very life changing for me. I personally use a small grill brush I found at Home Depot and my brushes have never looked better.
The woven baskets added a really nice natural element to the room, and also concealed some unsightly items. One basket corrals my waxes and specialty paints while the other holds the remainder of my favorite tools. A paint can opener, triangle stands, tape, sanding blocks, spackle and a painter's tool, rags and cheapy test brushes are all items you will find within this basket. And on painting day, I can just pull the entire thing out and tote it to the room I am working in.
The lower portion is concealed because it is a little more busy on the eyes.
I used the beautiful bird gift wrap to cover two cardboard boxes. The labels were created on my computer and printed at home on copy paper, which I cut down and affixed with double stick tape.
One box holds paint roller covers while the other has the ugly paint thinner and paint additive bottles.
Empty glass jars for future paint storage as well as the over-sized jars of paint and cans of stain, make up much of the rest of the lower half. I also placed my favorite specialty technique tools inside of a clear container that previously housed my roller covers.
The bottom shelf holds my spray paints. Because I knew it would be hard to access and see the colors near the back, I placed them inside of plastic bins I found at IKEA. Now, they just pull out like drawers and I can easily grab any color of the rainbow.
Quick tip: Add felt to the bottom of baskets and bins on shelves to help them slide out easier.
After I got the paint cabinet loaded, I couldn't wait to polish the rest of the room up. We hung a few laundry room art prints I purchased awhile back from Lettered & Lined. I love that they look cute yet offer real life functional advice!
After I temporarily lined the nook with pretty paper, I was trying to find the common color link within the room. No surprise, I had been drawing inspiration from the same color palette as my recently recovered office chair. It has a beautiful and playful blend of pinks, corals, greens and blues. Pretty much my all time favorite colors, ever. So using my very last scrap of fabric from the chair project, we made a small bag to hold our clothes pins.
We just sewed it up quick and attached it to a small embroidery hoop which I hung with ribbon. Does it get any cuter than that?
Funny how something so small can link both sides of the room together so well!
The paint cabinet lead to me finishing up the space "for now". Small DIY projects (like the pretty paper and DIY cabinet and small pops of colorful storage) all add up to a big impact. I say, do what you have to do to make the dungeon the most cheerful place possible to get those daily chores done! I really consider this room the Disney World of our home. Hopefully all of the prettiness will inspire me to keep it clean moving forward.
Do you have a room like that? One that brings on feelings of butterflies and happiness when you enter it?
Read more »
Warning: A color happy room is ahead...
Our laundry room is in a deep, dark and windowless corner of our home. And just like most rooms, it is always evolving. Over the past year, our laundry room has been housing our paint supplies, but in very unorganized piles. In an effort to finish organizing our final storage rooms, we finally focused on the paint pile by building ourselves a custom cabinet (read more about that here).
When we built and painted the cabinet, I really intended on blasting the cabinet with a coat of color. However, with the recently papered sewing/folding nook, and the other colors being used within the space, white (although it can be trite) was the way for us to go.
You see how those colors just shine through the cabinet doors? As I sit and work at my desk, I look over and this is my new view. Before I would just shut the door to the room, but now that I have taken the time to do some laundry and clean up clutter, I am loving the new scenery!
The uppers were filled with the main painting essentials; the jars of colorful paint, brushes, tools, swatch books, etc...
The jar labels are created from an Avery template I downloaded into Microsoft Word.
Quick tip: Place the full jars of paint near the front to create a clean visual appearance. Half filled jars can live near the back of the bunch.
We have been using jars of paint to hold the remaining contents of our gallons and quarts for the past few years now. I did receive one comment awhile back that paint shouldn't be stored in glass, but I can't personally figure out why because we have been loving this solution like crazy. The paint stays fresh, I can quickly see the colors I have and it has reduced the amount of shelving space that the over-sized cans take up. I am a fan.
On the top shelf, I used vases and jars to hold my different sized paint brushes.
Quick tip: Check out this You-Tube video for cleaning paint brushes. It was very life changing for me. I personally use a small grill brush I found at Home Depot and my brushes have never looked better.
The woven baskets added a really nice natural element to the room, and also concealed some unsightly items. One basket corrals my waxes and specialty paints while the other holds the remainder of my favorite tools. A paint can opener, triangle stands, tape, sanding blocks, spackle and a painter's tool, rags and cheapy test brushes are all items you will find within this basket. And on painting day, I can just pull the entire thing out and tote it to the room I am working in.
The lower portion is concealed because it is a little more busy on the eyes.
I used the beautiful bird gift wrap to cover two cardboard boxes. The labels were created on my computer and printed at home on copy paper, which I cut down and affixed with double stick tape.
One box holds paint roller covers while the other has the ugly paint thinner and paint additive bottles.
Empty glass jars for future paint storage as well as the over-sized jars of paint and cans of stain, make up much of the rest of the lower half. I also placed my favorite specialty technique tools inside of a clear container that previously housed my roller covers.
The bottom shelf holds my spray paints. Because I knew it would be hard to access and see the colors near the back, I placed them inside of plastic bins I found at IKEA. Now, they just pull out like drawers and I can easily grab any color of the rainbow.
Quick tip: Add felt to the bottom of baskets and bins on shelves to help them slide out easier.
After I got the paint cabinet loaded, I couldn't wait to polish the rest of the room up. We hung a few laundry room art prints I purchased awhile back from Lettered & Lined. I love that they look cute yet offer real life functional advice!
After I temporarily lined the nook with pretty paper, I was trying to find the common color link within the room. No surprise, I had been drawing inspiration from the same color palette as my recently recovered office chair. It has a beautiful and playful blend of pinks, corals, greens and blues. Pretty much my all time favorite colors, ever. So using my very last scrap of fabric from the chair project, we made a small bag to hold our clothes pins.
We just sewed it up quick and attached it to a small embroidery hoop which I hung with ribbon. Does it get any cuter than that?
Funny how something so small can link both sides of the room together so well!
The paint cabinet lead to me finishing up the space "for now". Small DIY projects (like the pretty paper and DIY cabinet and small pops of colorful storage) all add up to a big impact. I say, do what you have to do to make the dungeon the most cheerful place possible to get those daily chores done! I really consider this room the Disney World of our home. Hopefully all of the prettiness will inspire me to keep it clean moving forward.
Do you have a room like that? One that brings on feelings of butterflies and happiness when you enter it?
Saturday, November 21, 2015
DIY Rolling Storage Cart
Every time a few days go by without me writing a post, I feel so strange and disconnected from my happy place. I really, really miss blogging more frequently and truly appreciate this amazing community, and look forward to amping things back up again down the road. But my absence has been really great for me behind the scenes, as I have been able to give my shop some much needed time and I am #thisclose to getting my planner released. This week I am also jet setting across the country to speak at Bloom Bash Seattle! It is my first trip to the area and I am really excited to do a little exploring, networking and coming home with some new ideas. My husband, intense 49er's fan, is excited to wear his red and gold apparel in Seahawk territory. Let's hope he doesn't land in jail somewhere....
Today I am popping in with another sweet and simple DIY. One that I almost made far too complicated. One that I almost decided to scrap. But it is also one that just about any DIY beginner should feel comfortable tackling. Although about halfway through I questioned whether the project was going to pan out, it ended up being a darling little fit for our laundry room.
This project began like many of our other DIY and organizing projects do, out of pure frustration! We have a folding counter in our laundry room, yet I also use the space to hold our stain removal kit (which I find myself reaching for ALL of the time), sewing supplies and other random items that are dropped there over the course of the week.
Truthfully, the counter has begun to bow and the pretty paper backdrop has bubbled and curled in the corners due to the room's humidity. Someday soon we would like to update it all with a sturdier folding surface and pretty backsplash tile, we just aren't quite there yet. But back to the problem at hand... with all of the items landing on the counter, I really don't have an effective place to fold (or sew). It's a bit of a hot mess.
And no, I don't neeeeed those flowers there for any other reason than they make me happy and they were leftover from a recent photo project. But the rest of the items that land here, are all items we use often.
So, the cart. Wanting to also create something as part of this month's organizing challenge, I thought we would try to DIY with a new supply. That supply that I picked was plumbing parts. That supply didn't end up in the outcome of the final product though, but that was ultimately for the better. I couldn't resist sharing the story anyway, because the cart ended up being functional and fabulous and even budget friendly.
What we did use:
The construction of the cart began my making two very basic boxes. We cut all of our pieces at home, but most home improvement stores can also do that for you right at the store.
The 14" long 6" boards were glued and nailed around the perimeter of the 1" x 12" board.
We did that twice.
Now, what not-to-do. The plan was to use plumbing pipe to connect/stack the two boxes. I was also going to spray paint the pipe to dress things up. To install the pipe, we used a drill bit that was slightly smaller than the pipe coupling and drilled halfway through the bottom of the wood board.
But once we connected everything together, the scale of the boxes to the pipe was all wrong. Yikes. The cart was instantly top heavy, and not in a good way!
After some pondering and finally being OK that the pipe just wasn't going to work, we solved the problem by affixing 1" x 2" boards to outside corners of the cart with a couple of screws.
Also, I really want to take a moment to talk about my favorite moment in this entire project. I found these "acrylic and gold" looking casters at our local Ace Hardware. Love at first sight! At $10 for four, they were not the cheapest option, but they are by far the prettiest I have seen.
Installation of the casters went quick. We used an appropriately sized bit and drilled into the edge pieces used for the walls of the box construction (because the edges were deeper than the floor of the box to accommodate the casters).
Then pressed the casters in place.
So stinking cuuuuute! I filled in the nail holes, painted her up (Sherwin William's Sea Salt), attached a drawer pull, and now she holds all of my laundry room counter clutter.
The casters and drawer pull make it really easy for me to pull the cart out from under the counter when I need to access the stain or sewing supplies. They also gave the plain cart a little character.
And now I am back to using the counter for its original purpose... folding! No more eye rolling or quiet curses because there is too much counter clutter for me to get my daily chore completed. Is it appropriate to throw a party to celebrate this small and simple victory?
We used a combination of store purchased supplies and supplies we already had at home, bringing our total investment in at under $25. Considering we were able to customize it to our specific dimensions and color, I am happy with that nice number. And just think of all the use we can get out of this piece down the road should our laundry room requirements change. The size, shape and design make it the perfect candidate to be used in the garage, craft room, kid's room, bathroom... it's definitely a versatile one!
It's been so nice catching up today! Another Jen will be back tomorrow with another DIY that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And if you don't plan to get your power tools out anytime soon, her project will also provide organizational and storage eye candy as well. #ipromise
Now, I am off to plan our next "new supply" project and protect my husband from an abundance of Seattle fans...
Read more »
Today I am popping in with another sweet and simple DIY. One that I almost made far too complicated. One that I almost decided to scrap. But it is also one that just about any DIY beginner should feel comfortable tackling. Although about halfway through I questioned whether the project was going to pan out, it ended up being a darling little fit for our laundry room.
This project began like many of our other DIY and organizing projects do, out of pure frustration! We have a folding counter in our laundry room, yet I also use the space to hold our stain removal kit (which I find myself reaching for ALL of the time), sewing supplies and other random items that are dropped there over the course of the week.
Truthfully, the counter has begun to bow and the pretty paper backdrop has bubbled and curled in the corners due to the room's humidity. Someday soon we would like to update it all with a sturdier folding surface and pretty backsplash tile, we just aren't quite there yet. But back to the problem at hand... with all of the items landing on the counter, I really don't have an effective place to fold (or sew). It's a bit of a hot mess.
And no, I don't neeeeed those flowers there for any other reason than they make me happy and they were leftover from a recent photo project. But the rest of the items that land here, are all items we use often.
So, the cart. Wanting to also create something as part of this month's organizing challenge, I thought we would try to DIY with a new supply. That supply that I picked was plumbing parts. That supply didn't end up in the outcome of the final product though, but that was ultimately for the better. I couldn't resist sharing the story anyway, because the cart ended up being functional and fabulous and even budget friendly.
What we did use:
- 1 - 1" x 12" x 4' board, cut into two 12" wide by 14" long pieces
- 2 - 1" x 6" x 8' boards, cut into eight 6" wide by 14" long pieces
- 1 - 1" x 2" x 8' board, cut into four 2" wide by 22" long pieces
- 4 - Clear Casters
- Wood Glue (previously owned)
- Brad Nailer (previously owned)
- Drawer Pull (previously owned)
- Paint (previously owned)
The construction of the cart began my making two very basic boxes. We cut all of our pieces at home, but most home improvement stores can also do that for you right at the store.
The 14" long 6" boards were glued and nailed around the perimeter of the 1" x 12" board.
We did that twice.
Now, what not-to-do. The plan was to use plumbing pipe to connect/stack the two boxes. I was also going to spray paint the pipe to dress things up. To install the pipe, we used a drill bit that was slightly smaller than the pipe coupling and drilled halfway through the bottom of the wood board.
But once we connected everything together, the scale of the boxes to the pipe was all wrong. Yikes. The cart was instantly top heavy, and not in a good way!
After some pondering and finally being OK that the pipe just wasn't going to work, we solved the problem by affixing 1" x 2" boards to outside corners of the cart with a couple of screws.
Also, I really want to take a moment to talk about my favorite moment in this entire project. I found these "acrylic and gold" looking casters at our local Ace Hardware. Love at first sight! At $10 for four, they were not the cheapest option, but they are by far the prettiest I have seen.
Installation of the casters went quick. We used an appropriately sized bit and drilled into the edge pieces used for the walls of the box construction (because the edges were deeper than the floor of the box to accommodate the casters).
Then pressed the casters in place.
So stinking cuuuuute! I filled in the nail holes, painted her up (Sherwin William's Sea Salt), attached a drawer pull, and now she holds all of my laundry room counter clutter.
The casters and drawer pull make it really easy for me to pull the cart out from under the counter when I need to access the stain or sewing supplies. They also gave the plain cart a little character.
And now I am back to using the counter for its original purpose... folding! No more eye rolling or quiet curses because there is too much counter clutter for me to get my daily chore completed. Is it appropriate to throw a party to celebrate this small and simple victory?
We used a combination of store purchased supplies and supplies we already had at home, bringing our total investment in at under $25. Considering we were able to customize it to our specific dimensions and color, I am happy with that nice number. And just think of all the use we can get out of this piece down the road should our laundry room requirements change. The size, shape and design make it the perfect candidate to be used in the garage, craft room, kid's room, bathroom... it's definitely a versatile one!
It's been so nice catching up today! Another Jen will be back tomorrow with another DIY that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And if you don't plan to get your power tools out anytime soon, her project will also provide organizational and storage eye candy as well. #ipromise
Now, I am off to plan our next "new supply" project and protect my husband from an abundance of Seattle fans...
The Easiest Pegboard Project Ever!
Last week I hinted that I was working on a couple of pegboard projects. Why pegboard? Because they offer a way to maximize vertical space while keeping commonly used items right at hand. They allow you to mix and match a variety of storage options and keep your surfaces and work areas clutter free. And they are versatile! They can hold just about anything you wish, having options is always a win right?
My first peggy project is done and it was the easiest project ever. You know quick and easy is the name of the game around here.
After we removed a storage cabinet from our laundry room to use as a gift wrap station, we decided to take advantage of the fresh blank slate and bring in some new functionality. Part of that meant creating a mini-zone for my sewing supplies and garment care items. Y'all know I am no pro sewer, but I am dabbling in it a bit and hope to grow those skills. I would imagine that a proficient sewer may have more supplies and tools than I do, but for me, this pegboard was the perfect size and solution for our space.
Did I mention that this was super simple? Here is how it went down. I rummaged through my frame stash that I am collecting for a hallway gallery wall project (yes, get on that already Jen), and found a Ribba frame from IKEA. These frames are perfect for this project because they are deep enough to hold the pegboard away from the wall and allow room for the backs of the pegs to be inserted. They also have little metal clips to hold the actual pegboard in place within the frame.
As you can see from the photo above, we measured, cut the pegboard to the size of the frame, and popped it inside. Done. If you don't have the tools to cut down the pegboard, just have your measurements handy, bat your pretty eyes and ask the fine folks at the home improvement store to do it for you. OK, you don't even have to butter them up, if you purchase from them, most will offer cuts for free!
I gave the frame a coat of my favorite gold spray paint, and opted to leave the pegboard white to allow the colorful accessories to shine.
We already had the pegs from a few other pegboard projects that we have done in the past, however, those can also be found at the home improvement store.
As far as what I selected to store here, just the most commonly used items. I have a small box holding the rest nearby. Scissors, the rotary cutter, a tape measure, thread and needles.
Smaller items were placed in clear wall bud vases which I found a few years ago at CB2. The thread is on a generic thread holder which was spray painted in a pretty pink.
And that is that! Pegboard plus picture frame equals awesomeness.
I can't wait to share more as this space evolves! It is turning into quite a fun project and the amount of storage we are adding is crazy exciting.
Anyone else been having fun with peggy projects?
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Read more »
My first peggy project is done and it was the easiest project ever. You know quick and easy is the name of the game around here.
After we removed a storage cabinet from our laundry room to use as a gift wrap station, we decided to take advantage of the fresh blank slate and bring in some new functionality. Part of that meant creating a mini-zone for my sewing supplies and garment care items. Y'all know I am no pro sewer, but I am dabbling in it a bit and hope to grow those skills. I would imagine that a proficient sewer may have more supplies and tools than I do, but for me, this pegboard was the perfect size and solution for our space.
Did I mention that this was super simple? Here is how it went down. I rummaged through my frame stash that I am collecting for a hallway gallery wall project (yes, get on that already Jen), and found a Ribba frame from IKEA. These frames are perfect for this project because they are deep enough to hold the pegboard away from the wall and allow room for the backs of the pegs to be inserted. They also have little metal clips to hold the actual pegboard in place within the frame.
As you can see from the photo above, we measured, cut the pegboard to the size of the frame, and popped it inside. Done. If you don't have the tools to cut down the pegboard, just have your measurements handy, bat your pretty eyes and ask the fine folks at the home improvement store to do it for you. OK, you don't even have to butter them up, if you purchase from them, most will offer cuts for free!
I gave the frame a coat of my favorite gold spray paint, and opted to leave the pegboard white to allow the colorful accessories to shine.
We already had the pegs from a few other pegboard projects that we have done in the past, however, those can also be found at the home improvement store.
As far as what I selected to store here, just the most commonly used items. I have a small box holding the rest nearby. Scissors, the rotary cutter, a tape measure, thread and needles.
Smaller items were placed in clear wall bud vases which I found a few years ago at CB2. The thread is on a generic thread holder which was spray painted in a pretty pink.
And that is that! Pegboard plus picture frame equals awesomeness.
I can't wait to share more as this space evolves! It is turning into quite a fun project and the amount of storage we are adding is crazy exciting.
Anyone else been having fun with peggy projects?
Friday, November 20, 2015
DIY Storage Cabinet
Well! It took much longer than I planned (which is typically the case with our DIY projects), but now it is done and I am excited to proclaim, "We built a cabinet!"
A little over a year ago we tackled our storage room and I organized all of my painting supplies on some open wooden shelves. I loved the outcome, but ultimately decided that certain stains, cleaners and spray paints would be better off stored in a location further away from the furnace and water heater. And if I were going to move some, I thought, better to keep everything together and just move it all.
Since taking everything out of the storage room, my paint supplies have been hanging out in limbo. Stacks of cans and jars have been living in our laundry room until we could find the time and the right solution for getting things organized... again.
I had been keeping my eyes out for some sort of cabinet, but nothing that was the right size, color, shape or style was hitting my budget. Therefore, things have just sat on hold for the last year. Until now! We decided to finally get something built to tackle the problem once and for all.
Some of my paint supplies are pretty (jars of colorful paint), while others are less sightly (cans of stain). So, a combination of open and concealed storage would have to do the trick. And of course we didn't need anything too fancy, considering the ultimate function was just to store paint.
Thinking it would be nice to have everything behind doors, I decided on glass upper cabinets and standard lowers. Although glass faced cabinets are probably totally DIY-able, I opted to seek some out to use and then build the cabinet around them instead. We checked out some home improvement stores, our local Habitat Re-Store and IKEA. The most cost effective solution we came across were the BORGSJÖ white doors from IKEA, which was exactly what I was looking for paired with soft closing hinges and a fair price of $55 for all four doors.
Below is the plan we came up for to accommodate the doors we purchased:
For this build, we purchased two 1/2" inch 4'x8' MDF boards from Home Depot for about $45. We also purchased 4" crown molding, decorative floor molding and a piece of 4'x8' MDF paneling.
All of the tools and additional supplies we used to build this cabinet, we already had on hand:
Our IKEA did not have the white doors in stock for the bottom, but since I was planning on painting them, I purchased them anyway.
The final dimensions of the cabinet ended up at 75" tall x 29 1/4" wide x 16" deep.
Using strips of the MDF, we began by making a sturdy base for the cabinet to sit on. This would also give us some height for the floor molding.
Everything was affixed with a combination of wood glue and the brad nailer. All of the wood pieces were cut to size with our circular saw paired with the saw guide. I think that guide is one of my hubby's most favorite tools, ever.
To ensure the cabinet was reinforced throughout, we built a second cross support at the center of the frame. Bonus points for woodworking in leopard flats. I got to play with the brad nailer for this project and now that I have learned how to use it, it just be my favorite tool!
Because the shelves would be holding a bit of weight, we added extra strips of scrap MDF along the edges as added support (also glued and nailed in place). Here is a view of the frame with all of the shelves assembled, as well as the bottom side of the middle shelf. We ended up adding one more strip of support across the top of the cabinet as well, where the crown molding would ultimately be attached.
The final building step was to add the MDF panel to the back, and caulk everything in with white painter's caulk.
As I mentioned, I planned on painting the entire cabinet as well as the IKEA doors we purchased. So I started with a coat of primer on everything.
Then, I had to decide on a color. I went through my paint stash and no surprise, had about 15 different tealy blues to select from. I even popped a coat of one onto the doors and placed them into the laundry room to test things out (FYI - these painting pyramids will be your best friend when painting cabinet doors).
But considering our laundry room already has a lot of pattern and color happening, and that there would be clear display in the top of the cabinet adding to it, I decided that maybe I should just stick with boring ol' white. Totally not my style, but sometimes I surprise myself. So back to the painting board I went, and FOUR coats of Behr Ultra Pure White paint later, we were able to move her inside to her new home.
The IKEA doors came with nice hinges, so it was just a matter of pre-drilling some holes into the inside of the cabinet and attaching the doors as the final celebratory step!
I already use the Anthropologie melon pulls around my home (our nightstands and painted dining room hutch) and we really love them, so it was my natural default to add a little color and class to this new cabinet as well.
I just keep looking at the cabinet and high fiving my Mr. shouting, "We made that!". True story friends!
Essentially, it is just a giant MDF cabinet, showing the power of paint and decorative accents like molding, hardware and even pretty glass doors. I really love that we were able to customize something to fit our space and our needs and create a unique piece that will rock as laundry room paint storage.
I am guessing you know where I will be after the boys head to bed this evening... loading this baby up of course! I was also able to reuse some of that bird paper to cover a few boxes this weekend, and I can wait to pop those beauties behind the glass doors!
I have piles of laundry, paint and supplies on the floors at the moment, so for now, I will leave you with the beautiful shot of our week long project and give you a bigger room shot once I clean things up a bit. Until then, I am off to continue my celebrating of a pretty DIY cabinet that will be a versatile storage piece for us to use for many years to come!
Happy Organizing!
Read more »
A little over a year ago we tackled our storage room and I organized all of my painting supplies on some open wooden shelves. I loved the outcome, but ultimately decided that certain stains, cleaners and spray paints would be better off stored in a location further away from the furnace and water heater. And if I were going to move some, I thought, better to keep everything together and just move it all.
Since taking everything out of the storage room, my paint supplies have been hanging out in limbo. Stacks of cans and jars have been living in our laundry room until we could find the time and the right solution for getting things organized... again.
I had been keeping my eyes out for some sort of cabinet, but nothing that was the right size, color, shape or style was hitting my budget. Therefore, things have just sat on hold for the last year. Until now! We decided to finally get something built to tackle the problem once and for all.
Some of my paint supplies are pretty (jars of colorful paint), while others are less sightly (cans of stain). So, a combination of open and concealed storage would have to do the trick. And of course we didn't need anything too fancy, considering the ultimate function was just to store paint.
Thinking it would be nice to have everything behind doors, I decided on glass upper cabinets and standard lowers. Although glass faced cabinets are probably totally DIY-able, I opted to seek some out to use and then build the cabinet around them instead. We checked out some home improvement stores, our local Habitat Re-Store and IKEA. The most cost effective solution we came across were the BORGSJÖ white doors from IKEA, which was exactly what I was looking for paired with soft closing hinges and a fair price of $55 for all four doors.
Below is the plan we came up for to accommodate the doors we purchased:
For this build, we purchased two 1/2" inch 4'x8' MDF boards from Home Depot for about $45. We also purchased 4" crown molding, decorative floor molding and a piece of 4'x8' MDF paneling.
All of the tools and additional supplies we used to build this cabinet, we already had on hand:
- Circular Saw
- Saw Guide
- Saw Horses
- Miter Saw
- Brad Nailer
- Wood Glue
- Caulk/Caulk Gun
- Cordless Drill
Our IKEA did not have the white doors in stock for the bottom, but since I was planning on painting them, I purchased them anyway.
The final dimensions of the cabinet ended up at 75" tall x 29 1/4" wide x 16" deep.
Using strips of the MDF, we began by making a sturdy base for the cabinet to sit on. This would also give us some height for the floor molding.
Everything was affixed with a combination of wood glue and the brad nailer. All of the wood pieces were cut to size with our circular saw paired with the saw guide. I think that guide is one of my hubby's most favorite tools, ever.
To ensure the cabinet was reinforced throughout, we built a second cross support at the center of the frame. Bonus points for woodworking in leopard flats. I got to play with the brad nailer for this project and now that I have learned how to use it, it just be my favorite tool!
Because the shelves would be holding a bit of weight, we added extra strips of scrap MDF along the edges as added support (also glued and nailed in place). Here is a view of the frame with all of the shelves assembled, as well as the bottom side of the middle shelf. We ended up adding one more strip of support across the top of the cabinet as well, where the crown molding would ultimately be attached.
The final building step was to add the MDF panel to the back, and caulk everything in with white painter's caulk.
As I mentioned, I planned on painting the entire cabinet as well as the IKEA doors we purchased. So I started with a coat of primer on everything.
Then, I had to decide on a color. I went through my paint stash and no surprise, had about 15 different tealy blues to select from. I even popped a coat of one onto the doors and placed them into the laundry room to test things out (FYI - these painting pyramids will be your best friend when painting cabinet doors).
But considering our laundry room already has a lot of pattern and color happening, and that there would be clear display in the top of the cabinet adding to it, I decided that maybe I should just stick with boring ol' white. Totally not my style, but sometimes I surprise myself. So back to the painting board I went, and FOUR coats of Behr Ultra Pure White paint later, we were able to move her inside to her new home.
The IKEA doors came with nice hinges, so it was just a matter of pre-drilling some holes into the inside of the cabinet and attaching the doors as the final celebratory step!
I already use the Anthropologie melon pulls around my home (our nightstands and painted dining room hutch) and we really love them, so it was my natural default to add a little color and class to this new cabinet as well.
I just keep looking at the cabinet and high fiving my Mr. shouting, "We made that!". True story friends!
Essentially, it is just a giant MDF cabinet, showing the power of paint and decorative accents like molding, hardware and even pretty glass doors. I really love that we were able to customize something to fit our space and our needs and create a unique piece that will rock as laundry room paint storage.
I am guessing you know where I will be after the boys head to bed this evening... loading this baby up of course! I was also able to reuse some of that bird paper to cover a few boxes this weekend, and I can wait to pop those beauties behind the glass doors!
I have piles of laundry, paint and supplies on the floors at the moment, so for now, I will leave you with the beautiful shot of our week long project and give you a bigger room shot once I clean things up a bit. Until then, I am off to continue my celebrating of a pretty DIY cabinet that will be a versatile storage piece for us to use for many years to come!
Happy Organizing!
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