Finally

Since my photo challenge has been a bust, I decided to share something I have gotten done…my laundry room! 

Besides adding drawer pulls to the built-ins and a fern on each of the ledges, the laundry room is finally complete!  It has been more than year since I began scrapping the popcorn ceilings.  This room is now completely functional and a space I enjoy folding laundry in.  I love all the countertop and storage space we have added.  I am so grateful for a handy husband who will agree to all my crazy, cost-saving ideas.  When I opened up my suburban and showed him the heap of  reclaimed pine flooring I bought at a garage sale, he smiled and sighed.  I assured him that he was looking at $50 countertops!  A couple months later I drew out my vision on a grocery receipt and this is what he built me.  I also convinced him to buy three very inexpensive pantry cabinets that I knew we could make look like built-ins.  He likes to share his labor more than his money, so it is a win-win for both of us!  

The ledges are probably my favorite part of this project.  I hang almost all my clothes to dry and wanted plenty of space to do that.  I didn’t want one long pole, so those are my solution.  The pipes add a fun industrial element to the space.  All the lumber and pipes for the three shelves cost less than $35, and it took me maybe three hours to build them.

I bought the light shade at a garage sale several years ago for $5.  It is an original milk glass shade.  I have two similar shades in my kitchen that I bought from Schoolhouse Electric.  Schoolhouse Electric is an on-line store that sells vintage lighting and hardware.  They sell all the shades and fixtures separately so you can custom design a light fixture.  I purchased pendants for over my kitchen island from this store several years ago, and they are still some of my favorite light fixtures in my home.  When I saw that milk glass globe at the garage sale, I knew I would be able to find a surface mount to fit it from Schoolhouse Electric.  The surface mount wasn’t cheap, so when it was all said and done the light a huge cost savings, but it is exactly what I wanted.    

I added a curtain to the bottom of one of the sections of countertop to store my vacuum behind.  I have an Electrolux canister vacuum and it is very hard to store…and I have it out almost continually!  So, I wanted a place that I could just “hide” it behind.  This little space works perfect.  The ore is from one of my favorite places in the world…Evergreen Lodge, on Big Sand.  I was talking with the resort owner one morning about my love for anything old.  He started asking me about the things I liked to collect and look for.  I told him that most of the things I love don’t have much value or worth.  I explained that I am not a “true collector”.  I pointed to a really old ore in a little nook in the lodge and said, “Something like that!  In fact, if you ever have old ores you want to get rid of, I would purchase them from you.”  He took me behind the front desk and showed me several ores he was going to repaint, and asked if any interested me.  He told me to just quietly take it to my cabin and I didn’t owe him anything for it.  The ore I chose is old and worn, and all though I couldn’t sell it for much, it is priceless to me!