Week One of the One Room Challenge

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The Challenge

So today I am starting on an adventure known as the one room challenge.  This is a six week challenge that is done twice a year with 20 designers and people like myself can join the fun as a guest participant. Every week I will be showing you the progress on the room, and linking my post to the challenge. So here is week one.  Want to see what others are doing? Look here ORC Blog page.

The Room

With that said the  absolute worst room in my house is going to get a makeover. It’s my laundry room. I can hardly call it a room but it does have 4 walls and 2 doors. It’s more like a tiny little pass-through from the house to the garage. Home of our washer and dryer, and a cat box, oh and whatever else gets shoved in there because we don’t really know what to do with it. The whatever else fits is usually stuff that gets piled on top of the washer and dryer. We also keep our ironing board and iron in there.

What it’s like now

When we bought our appliances I thought I could not live without a front load pair of machines, and the pedestal they went on. That has turned out to be a huge mistake because the cabinets above the washer and dryer are no longer accessible for me. I am only 5’2″ and my short arms can’t reach up and over it all I gained the drawer space from the pedestals, but I lost the cabinets.  So the only storage in the room is no longer useful for me. My husband can reach it, but he is not the one that uses that room.

Why it’s not functional.

There is no longer a space to do folding either since using the tops of the machines would have me folding over my head.  The other issue with this room is that you can’t get to the utility sink. I have a small rack hung above the cat box that is front of the sink for hanging clothes on. between the rack and the cat box you can’t get to the sink.

Here is a picture of the space as it looks right now. I can’t believe I am letting you see this, but trust me with the love it’s going to get over the next 6 weeks it will be transformed into a totally useable space.

 

The first picture is from our family room into the laundry room. The next picture is standing against the door from the first picture looking across.  The final picture is going the other way.  as you can see the doors really cut down on the useable wall space. There is no way to make the door from the family room into the laundry a barn type door to avoid the door swing, and the other door goes to the garage. Building code calls for a special fire door in this location, so I can’t change that one.

As you can see I have a lot of challenges in here with space and doors.  My other big challenge is that I have a parrot in the family room.  Parrots can’t be exposed to the paint fumes. I am going to have to figure out what to do about that.

So here’s the game plan.

  1. Paint the room the same grey as the adjoining room.  It’s Behr Gentle Rain. I will probably use some wallpaper in the room as well.
  2. Paint the cabinets.
  3. Remove the pedestals from the washer and dryer.
  4. Build a nice wood countertop for the washer and dryer.
  5. Maybe paint the utility sink?
  6. Hang Pegboard on the wall where the broom and mop are now.
  7.  Hide the cat box.

This week my plan is to get the room ready for painting. I also hope to get at least some of the painting done.  A lot depends on if I can get help from my hubby or son in moving the washer and dryer. So there you have it. The room and the game plan, wish me luck!  One Room Challenge here I come!

Till Next Time….

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