Monthly Archives: September 2016

Laundry Room Project Part 4: Wood Counter Tops

I love how he even moved the outlet above the counter top.

I’m feeling bad about the lack of activity on my blog, especially since I’ve had my new laundry room up and running for almost a month. September is super busy at work and in all honesty I find I don’t have much “gas in my tank” for much else during my down time. We have been plugging away at the finishing touches, but as for function – it is totally awesome! I can honestly say it has changed my life. I pop in loads every day or two and have absolutely no laundry building up. I used spend my entire weekend doing load after load and now it just seems to always be done – so thankful for this convenience.

We really wanted to transform this space at minimal cost and I have to say we have been pretty successful. I bought paint and we paid someone $100 to drill the hole for the dryer vent. Tim did all the plumbing and electrical and we managed to carry both appliances up ourselves (without too much difficulty I might add). The last steps to making the space functional involved some essential storage space and a counter. Originally we had planned to put in a sink, but after contemplating it, we decided we could always add one in later if we thought it was needed. To be honest, I don’t think it is something I will need and I knew it would take away some of the limited counter space, so we opted to wait.

Tim bought plain old 2 X 6’s for the counter for under $60. We had the screws and stain on hand, so there really weren’t additional costs. I know he spent several hours measuring, sanding, building and staining it, but I love the finished look. The dark stain looks great with the white/blue and ties in nicely to my dressing room/scrapbooking room which is the adjacent room. Projects like this are always harder than you initially expect because nothing is ever “square” in a 100 year old house. I am so proud of him and the great quality work he did. He did such nice work that my 10 year old appliances don’t even look half bad (although we do need to adjust them slightly as they aren’t quite level).

We picked up this Ikea cabinet through Kijiji for $60 (I think). It provides perfect storage for my vacuum, gift wrapping supplies and extra linen. As you can see, we still need to figure out the space below the counter top, install some shelves, the ironing board and a few other finishing details. We’ll continue to chip away and completing this project in the next few weeks, but at least it is up and running!

One of my favourite things about the laundry room is the awesome smell of freshness! I never even noticed this before because I always did “load and dash” when I had to do laundry in the basement. Now I love to linger in my new space and actually enjoy folding the clothes on the large counter top! It’s bright and pretty and smells great too! Feeling blessed.

Best Homemade Granola EVER!

My friend Robin passed on this recipe and I’m not yet sure whether to be thankful or not. It is like a tiny piece of heaven and seriously addictive. The best/worst part is that it’s pretty healthy. Not sure about you, but sometimes the most incredibly delicious nutritious snacks are the worst ~ I seem to be able to convince myself that a little more won’t hurt because it’s good for me. I love that this granola is grain free! This is where I should mentioned that if you or someone you live with has a nut allergy, bringing this into your house would be a huge mistake and ill advised. However, if you’ve managed to dodge that bullet and enjoy nuts ~ you absolutely MUST try this recipe. I take no credit for this incredible concoction, but believe it is one recipe I will never tire of.  It really is that good! (In my opinion of course.) The down side is that it’s pretty costly to make and for that reason alone, my friend said I would soon learn to ration it!

All the credit for this recipe goes to Gwen at baD.I.N.K.adink (which she adapted from the Paleo Cupboard). Not only is the recipe great, but I love the name of it ~ “Cracknola”!

Her Cracknola recipe consists of 4 cups of mixed raw nuts (I used cashews, pecans, almonds and macadamia ~ so delicious!), coconut, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and dried cranberrries tossed in a wonderful coconut oil and honey mixture. Have I mentioned how good this is? For the full recipe, check out Gwen’s site. You will not be disappointed. I made it according to the recipe, but did bake it a little longer as is often the case with my oven.

It is delicious on yogurt and porridge, but great to snack on by the spoonful as well! Enjoy, but remember to proceed with caution….highly addictive!

 

 

Laundry Room Project Part 3: Upcycled Light Fixture

Upcycled Vintage Basket Light FixtureLike any room make-over, you generally have a vision for how the space will look when you’re done. I have dreamed of a main floor laundry room for a long time and although I have a very distinct style in mind, there are so many great ideas out there that it is hard to narrow it down and decide exactly what I want in this new space. My old laundry room was really not a laundry room at all, but rather a corner of my unfinished basement that housed stinky hockey equipment, various tubs of items in storage, boxes for electronics that were still on warranty, the freezer and so much more. It was nasty to say the least. If one doesn’t hate doing laundry because of the nature of the task, having a complete and utter dump in which to do it will turn you off for sure.

The one thing I knew  for certain was that I wanted to do lots of upcycling in this space (not unlike the rest of my house), but with deliberate intention to mix old and new. For the light fixture I wanted something old and worn that would add a bit of character to the space. I have high 10 foot ceilings, so I knew that a pendant would be necessary in order to get adequate lighting. Although I didn’t know what the final form would take, I trusted that I would know the piece when I saw it. Sure enough, I found this incredible antique metal basket at one of my favourite antique stores “Candle and Co.” in West St. Paul. I picked it up for $40 and the best part was I didn’t have to do one thing to it! I loved the colour and the peeling paint/rust was exactly the look I was going for.

Antique Metal Basket upcycle

I actually picked up three items for $46! Love this basket.

In addition to the basket which would end up being my make shift shade, I also picked up a set of two pendant lights for $5 at a garage sale.  (Yes, that is $2.50 each – what a deal!) All I needed to do was remove the glass and spray paint it black.

To create the finished fixture, we just took the spray painted pendant and reassembled it with the basket between the rod and the bottom ~ way too easy and I love the finished look. The colour is a hint darker than my walls and the old style bulb is a great finishing touch!

garage sale pendant light

This is sitting a little wonky because the fixture was already taken apart, but basically the glass shade sat inside the metal basket part.

garage sale pendant light

All we did was unscrew the the fixture to remove the glass and spray paint it black.

Tim and I moved the washer up on Thursday. It is hooked up and ready to go. The dryer gets moved today and although the room isn’t even close to being finished with many smaller projects left to complete, my goal is accomplished ~ starting today I can do laundry on my main floor! The light fixture looks great in the space, the only thing I may do, is use a small “s” hook to hold the handle up. It doesn’t interfere with head room, but I may play with the finished look a bit.Upcycled Light Fixture

Deep sigh….feeling so blessed to have such a handyman for a husband and so appreciative that he spent his entire two weeks of holidays working on our laundry room!

Laundry Room Project Part 2: Antique Washboard Upcycle

Upcycled Washboard

AFTER: Upcycled antique washboard for my new main floor laundry room.

You may remember my beginning of summer post with so many lofty goals I hoped to accomplish this summer. Although I have definitely fallen short on my scrapbooking goals. I did manage to plow through many of the items on my “to do list”.

I have to say that purging is what took up most of my time. I went through tubs and boxes and old toys and extra linens…..you name it, I purged it. I posted many items on Kijiji and although there are still lots of items that are up for sale, I have sold a ton and it feels so good to de-bulk. All that accumulated stuff just feels heavy and I must say it is so cleansing to rid your home of all of those things that are not essential and that you just don’t like. As with any great purge, I also came across several great items I forgot I even had. Such was the case with this old washboard that actually once belonged to my mom. (I’m not really sure where she got it, but I do know it once belonged to her and having lost her over 17 years ago – it was a great find and something I wanted to hang on to.)

Finding the old washboard during my summer purge was perfect time with the relocation of our laundry room to the main floor. The washboard was not in great shape and the words on the front plate were faded beyond recognition. I decided to upcycle the washboard to go into my new laundry space. This involved a simple coat of paint and application of the words I wanted on my washboard. I can’t say this was my idea, I saw it on Pinterest and copied the words verbatim. I used the same process when I created the homemade Rummoli board last Christmas. The tutorial I followed for both was from Little Bit Funky.

Letter Transfer:

  1. Create the word art for your project using Word or Pages. To get the curved LAUNDRY word, I inserted a circle and stretched it into a large long oval shape. I used the top edge of the shape to place my letters in the desired shape. To do this you need to place each letter in its own text box and then rotate the box slightly to match the curve of the oval. (In Pages, you hold the command button while clicking a corner of the text box in order to rotate it. )
  2. Carefully glue a piece of freezer paper (waxy side up) t0 a sheet of 8 1/2″ x 11″ cardstock. Make sure it is cut to exact size and glued down on all the corners.
  3. Place the paper inside your printer. (If you don’t know if your ink lands on the top or bottom of your page, you may want to do a test run on a blank sheet of paper so you place it in correctly.) *I place my page with the waxy side facing down.
  4. When you go to print the document, you need to choose: BEST quality on plain paper and FLIP HORIZONTALLY (mirror image). Once you choose this option, your print preview will display your image in mirror image. Press print.
  5. Carefully place your image ink side down on the desired surface. You must be very careful not to smear the ink as it is just sitting, wet on top of the waxy surface. You can not adjust it once placed so do it right the first time.
  6. Use the edge of a spoon to press/transfer the lettering/image to the surface.
  7. Spray with a clear coat (urethane) to seal the image and prevent future smearing. Do not drag a brush over it.

I love how this method is not perfect ~ it gives a great vintage look! My laundry room is certainly not at the decorating stage, but I can’t wait to hang this up when it’s ready for the finishing touches.

  1. BEFORE: Antique washboard with original lettering faded and hardly visible.
    Washboard primed and painted out in Simply White by Benjamin Moore.
    AFTER: Upcycled antique washboard for my new main floor laundry room.