Laundry Room Remodel

I found myself with a little free time this weekend and decided to make it count. I have been wanting to add storage to our laundry room for over two years (I even wrote this post about it back in 2011). I had been holding out for an amazing deal on an upper cabinet, and this spring I finally found one at our Restore for about $25. But... it sat in the garage all summer. My husband actually set this project in motion complaining about the current laundry room situation on Friday.

So this weekend we brought in my cabinet and I got painting. I had an inspiration photo to work from out of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, so T.J. and I were on the same page. He had some carpentry to do, and I had painting to do! I even went to Menard's and found the shelving we needed myself.

This project was truly on a dime. I found shelving in the bargain bin because the ends were broken (but we didn't need the whole length anyway!) for $1.69. We also reused whatever we could.

The grant total was only $36 excluding paint we already had. Now that is a big bang for our buck! See the bottom of this post for a picture of what we were (shamefully) working with before.

Here is my Restore cabinet. It was already cream so it only took a couple coats of white applied evenly with a small foam roller to fix it up.

My broken bargain board that saved us at least $15!

 We simply set the cabinet on the existing shelf after I slapped a fresh coat of white on it (it was highlighter orange before!). The bracket makes the whole operation sturdy.

Next, T.J. added the upper shelves. He made two "braces" out of primed 1x2s for each one and attached them to the wall (into the studs) and the side of the cabinet.

Finally, I reattached the cabinet doors, touched up the ends of the brackets with white paint, and T.J. added extra 1x2 to the fronts of each upper shelf to make a finished edge.

My inspiration photo that has been pinned up for a year in the laundry room!

I wouldn't call this room completely finished... I'm still thinking about replacing the awful florescent light with something prettier, and maybe even stenciling the wall behind the shelves like my inspiration photo. But heck, it is much better than it was before! Our new view when coming in from the garage:

Feeling Fall

It's that time again: fall. For some reason fall feels like the biggest season shift for me. Fall kinds of melts into winter and spring drags on into summer, but fall clearly starts when it gets cooler and everyone is back in school. I also know because my Starbucks order changes flavors. :-)

Anyway, I haven't done anything too new in terms of decorating for fall, but I hauled out all the good stuff from last year. Since I haven't had time the last month or so to do much DIYing, I thought I'd put together a collection of fall deco I'm coveting and thinking about accomplishing this weekend. Plus a couple of my own projects from the last few years.

Pumpkin ideas (from here): 

Apparently I am attracted to white pumpkins.

My monogram pumpkin. How-to here.

Fall Wreaths

This one is perfect, not sure it would stand out quite the same way on my pink door though! From Etsy.

Source unknown but possibly from here, lots of dark doors and I love how the white monogram pops!

Witch hat cookies - these were delicious! Read about them here. 

New Stove!

Today is a monumental day. This year for my birthday I asked my family to pitch in to a "stove fund" because I knew it would be much easier to convince my husband to buy a stove if the price tag was a little lower. It worked like a charm and now I have...

A new stove! Can you tell I am happy?? It is like walking into a whole new kitchen. Check out the before and after.

Such an upgrade!

 T.J. working on installing the cord. 

We could roast an extra large turkey in here... but of course we never will!

It looks great with the fridge too.

Check out previous kitchen evolution posts here and here. It has come a long way in just over two years!

A really big thanks to my family that helped make this happen, I will bring you cookies baked in my new oven soon!