Updated Exposed Wood Shelf

This is a little project that is pretty quick and easy, yet makes such a big difference.

My laundry "room" is nothing more than the laundry stuff behind two sets of bi-fold doors. It's in the mudroom hallway, directly opposite of these hooks. When we first moved in, my dad helped me hang up this melamine shelf that I had hanging around to put my laundry essentials. I didn't get a wider shot, but directly to the right of the shelf is a window so there's no place to hang a cabinet. That's why I had to make do with just a shelf. Not to mention, that it would be hard to get to anything that would be on an upper shelf.

Anyway, even though I'm the only one who uses this room and the doors stay closed when I'm not actively putting clothes in/out of the washer or dryer, I still wanted to do something about the exposed edges of the shelf. I know they make some kind of tape you can iron on, but I wanted to do something prettier.

I first cleared everything off the shelf and purged and organized.  I filled up a mason jar with oxyclean so I wouldn't have that big box to pull down every time I needed it. Got rid of stuff I didn't use anymore, and put all the free samples into a little container.
 

Then I went off to Home Depot and got some nice, but not too thick, moulding. I'm still getting over my fear of power tools, so I got out my handy miter box and cut two pieces to size. Each piece had a straight edge that would sit flush with the wall, and a 45 degree angle edge where they would meet at the corner.

Just squeeze a strip of liquid nails across the whole piece and put it up.

I held them both in place for a few minutes and then used painter's tape to hold it in place until it was dry.

Here's a view from underneath, but I think only my kids are at a height where they could see it.

There was still a tiny gap between the shelf and moulding and the corners did not meet up perfectly, so I used a little caulk to close the seam.

Much better!

You will notice that the big tide on the left has one of the cups that you pour into. I've been keeping it in a bowl since for some reason the sides of it always get sticky, but a styrofoam bowl did not fit with my new plan.

I then remembered that we had some old tiles in the basement that the previous owners had left us...

Perfect! I cut up a felt pad (that's mean do go under furniture) and put a quarter in each corner.

Much better! Since we all love a good before and after:

There you have it - an easy and inexpensive project that makes a big impact. What have you been working on this weekend?

Linking up:
Home Stories A2Z | House on the Way | At the Picket Fence | DIY Showoff | Beneath My Heart | Thrifty Decor Chick |

Removable Chalkboard

I know that chalkboards have been done over and over again, but I didn't jump on the bandwagon until now. I'm not really sure why I waited so long because I love it!! At the end of a row of cabinets in the kitchen, there is an empty wall and I knew it was a perfect place to have one. Our cabinets are laminate (boo) so I wasn't sure how well chalkboard paint would work and I also wasn't sure how the hubby would like it (he does!) so I wanted something that would work on laminate and could be easily removed in case he hated it. I then stumbled upon a post on Irma's blog where she used chalkboard contact paper - brilliant!

I went right to amazon.com and ordered a roll for myself.

My cabinet width was 24" and the contact paper is 18" so I measured 3" on each side (24-18=6/2=3) to center the roll. I also cut it to 30" tall and eyeballed how high I wanted it to go.

I carefully peeled off a few inches from the top and placed it down.

Then, unpeeling a few inches of the backing at a time, I carefully smoothed all the bubbles out. I first tried using a credit card, but I found it made tiny little nicks so I just used my hand.

After it's up, you have to prime the chalkboard by rubbing a piece of chalk on its side across the entire surface. Erase the chalk and then it's ready to use.

To dress it up a little, I wanted to put a frame of moulding around it. I took a picture on my phone of the moulding around the doorway of the kitchen so I could find something similar at Lowes. I came home with a pre-primed piece that looked great. Even though it was primed already, you should still sand down to make a perfectly smooth surface.

I did a few coats of spray paint before cutting it down and then another couple after to cover up any scratches that occurred while cutting.

I haven't quite gotten over my fear of power tools so I'm still using a miter box, but it really wasn't so bad cutting all the angles. It just took about 200 times longer than if I had a compound miter saw. Oh well...

This vinyl adhesive caulk worked great for attaching all the sides together.

I don't have any clamps either, so some frog tape came in handy keeping the pieces together until it dried. (Just a word of advice - even though it says you can paint after two hours, that doesn't mean it's actually dry after two hours so do yourself a favor and leave it overnight. Just saying.... :-)

My favorite way to temporarily hang something up is by using the amazing Command strips.

Just four sets of these velcro strips and it's not going anywhere!

Make sure to use a level so you know it's straight. And if it's not, it's as easy as pie to adjust it!

Now I've got a great memo board / message spot / menu / shopping list / etc. etc. that the whole family can see when we go in and out of the kitchen! Love it!

Do you also write like a third grader whenever a piece of chalk ends up in your hand, or is it just me?

Linking up here:
Today's Creative Blog | It's Just Called Spicy | At the Picket Fence | Craftionary | Serenity Now | DIY Showoff | It's Overflowing | Creative Jewish Mom | Today's Creative Blog | Remodelaholic |

Mudroom Reveal

Alright, so when I left off, we had installed the outer "frame" of the board and batten. Next to go up were the vertical battens. My amazing brother-in-law continued to help out with the project (like bringing all his tools) and used his nifty L-square to make sure everything was straight.


My son loves to "help" and got in full worker-man gear and got out all of his tools :-) Can't forget the hard hat and goggles - safety first!

Then the horizontal wood piece for the hooks went up.

And finally the smaller battens on top. You can see that not everything is perfect and that's okay! That's why we have wood filler, putty, caulk, etc. You can also see that we had to notch out a little opening for the light switch and the dremel was really useful for that. I don't have a picture of it, but my brother-in-law used his router to make a nice "top/shelf" across the moulding, using a plain piece of wood. It was way cheaper than getting a piece of crown moulding and easier to install.

Here is the wall all patched and painted. It looks so much better already! Still on the to do list: replace beige light switch and cover with a white one, remove old hooks, figure out what to do with the fuse box and hang up new hooks.



Ta da! New light switch, new hooks installed, and new pictures to kill two birds with on stone. The first vertical frame covers up the fuse box. I used Command picture hanging strips so it is easily removable whenever we need to access the panel. And the second vertical frame covers up the screw holes from the old hooks. Plus, I get to see these beautiful pictures everyday when I come and go. It looks so pretty that I almost didn't want to hang anything up, but that would've defeated the purpose of this whole project, right?!

Here's what it looks like on a typical day, I'm keeping it real folks. Magazine worthy: no, but functional: definitely!

How do you organize and manage your entry way?

Linking up here:

     

  

We've Got a Plan

In case you missed it, I last wrote about finding a way to organize our back entry and had board and batten as my inspiration for design. This is the plan I came up with:

The total wall width is 71" and I chose 56" as the height because as you can see in the original post, there is a fuse box right there (for the portion of the house that was added on about 30 years ago) so I wanted the top of the moulding to come just underneath that. I wanted the "frame" of the board and batten to be the same width all around, with the "interior" battens narrower than that, and then decided how many battens I wanted. Then I just did some math to come up with the width of the spacing. I also decided to do two rows because I know there is a lot of stuff that needs to be hung up and I didn't want it to be all smushed together.

I went to Home Depot with my amazing brother-in-law (who you'll see a lot of coming up!) and we decided to use MDF for everything except the two horizontal boards that would have the hooks. He recommended to use wood for these because then we'd be able to screw them right into the studs and it would be able to hold a lot more weight. Kids have heavy knapsacks these days, you know!

I also picked out these hooks for the top row and these hooks for the bottom row.

Actually, they both have a chrome finish but I couldn't find the first one in chrome online. It wasn't my first choice, but they go with the handles of the closets that house the washer/dryer directly across from where they will be hanging. One of these days I can change them up or spray paint them something different.

The first step was painting the wall behind where everything will be installed. Then we removed the old baseboard and shoe moulding. Man, was that hard to pry off! (Note: hammer and crowbar below.)

We left the existing hooks up so we'd have something to hang our stuff on in the meantime. Then we put up the vertical pieces on either edge, keeping my original plans handy. Remember, measure twice, cut once! :-) And after that the two wood horizontal pieces where the hooks would end up going. We used glue and then screws to make sure it was in nice and tight.

Stay tuned for the next step!