My Little Corner of the Prairie: Laundry Room with German Schmear

I said I would share projects, so here's the first one. It was started a year ago in April and finished up several weeks later in July. Sometimes I have to wait for someone to be able to help. Ahem.

Anyway, we redid the laundry area. It's a small space tucked in by the back door. In fact, if you open the back door all the way, you'll hit the dryer. The hot water heater closet and the furnace are both located back there as well. Not much space to work with.

The left-side cupboard held laundry supplies, the iron, light bulbs, and various cans of spray paint. The right-side cupboard was literally full of junk. Stuff we tossed in there in case it would be needed someday - not that we'd have known to look there for it if we did need it. Random tools, cups of screws, empty containers in case we needed one to store something else we'd probably never look at again. It only took a few minutes and a trash bag to empty that one. In fact, emptying the cupboards one day while I was decluttering is what sparked this renovation.

You can see we attempted some added storage with shelves and hooks. The table blocks the furnace and hot water heater access, but it's easy to pull out. It was the hooks on the wall to the left that were in the way. Any time we needed to get to the furnace (more and more often in the past year) those hooks had to be emptied and then bent upwards so the door could clear them to open.

We tore down the cabinets and they'll be used elsewhere. I think Jess has them in her garage at the moment. You can see where Greg missed taking out a screw and manhandled a nice hole in the wall. He fixes that.

We only moved out the dryer to be able to work on that back wall. I started this project using that stepladder, but ended it using a small scaffolding we bought for my birthday present. No pics of it, yet, but I'll share that with you soon. It's been one of the best birthday presents ever.

The back wall is all patched and painted. The color is "Feathers of a Dove" from Valspar. That color will eventually be throughout most of the entire house. I did put on two coats, but to cover that dark red, that's not bad.

Here's the faux brick panel Greg put up for me. You can see he cut around the panel where the washer hoses are connected. This wall took a whole brick panel plus a little more.

The German Schmear technique was easy - just smearing on joint compound. I made sure to really get it into the grout lines, then scraped and smeared on the brick until I liked it. It's so easy to personalize the look you want with this technique, using just a little or really covering that red brick. I loved the look immediately. You can see I got joint compound on the wall to the right. That wiped right off with a damp cloth.

Here it is, finished. It dried with a bit of an ivory tint to it, which I wasn't expecting. Apparently it was the type of joint compound I used. I could whitewash it, but I was eager to be finished, and it isn't going to show so much when the room is finished, so I left it. I did caulk the edges where the brick meets the side walls, just for a more seamless finish.

Greg put up the pipe/board shelves. We started with just the two shelves. I still wanted plenty of storage back here, but I wanted it to look nice, so I ordered those gray cloth baskets online. They were on clearance, and by the time I wanted more, they weren't available. Those two wicker baskets are Goodwill purchases. They're pretty sturdy, with wire frames. The one on the left I keep pulled just slightly forward to keep the top of the washer from hitting the pipe there when I open it. I insisted on deep shelves, so that's a little bit of effort I have to make to keep things from getting banged up.

You can see how the panel for the washer hoses just kind of fades into the wall. Greg didn't want to hang the shelves quite that low, but 1. I'm short and need a grabber or stepladder to get to the baskets as it is. 2. It helps hide that plumbing panel. He liked it in the end.

The glass drink dispenser has Downy fabric softener in it. The glass bottles on the left hold bleach in one, vinegar in the other. Those were fun, until I accidentally grabbed the bleach instead of the vinegar and poured it into the softener dispenser... No damage to any laundry, thank goodness, but I if I'm going to use those bottles, they need labels first.

You can see the little table on the left. It holds a tray with the big glass canister full of powdered laundry soap, and whatever doodads I find in pockets as I fill the washer. Between the washer and dryer is the folding drying rack that I put on the back deck or set up in the dining room for the laundry that needs to be air dried and isn't hung up.

It's difficult to get a photo of that left wall in it's entirety. Here's the new shelf above the furnace and water heater closet doors. I painted the doors and trim to match the walls, so they blend in rather than stand out.

The iron hanging bar is just high enough that the doors clear it and except for sliding the hangers one way or the other, nothing needs to be moved besides the table to access those, and that slides right out.

This little table is actually half of a library table I got from my dad many years ago. The veneer was very damaged after he used it in his basement (damp) laundry area. Greg sliced it in half for me a few years back. I re-stained it for this room re-do, and it's perfect for this little nook. It does sit in front of the washer just a bit, but not enough to make it hard to get to the machine.

So here's the "official" after photo. We added a third shelf above the washer/dryer, and a new rug. The floor needs to be done, but that waits until the kitchen floor gets done, so a rug it is. I don't show it, but we did replace the light as well. Not with the pretty decorative hanging light I was thinking I wanted at first, but a plain LED "boob" light that makes it so I can see in there at night. I'm good with that.

And here it is in it's current at-this-moment state. It's not as prettily arranged, but this is real life. It's still nicer to do laundry in here than the way it was before.