An Updated Laundry Room...

I live in a house built in the 90s.  Back then someone had the genius idea of putting laundry rooms in the mud room/entry from the garage in almost every house from this era.  To me, this was the worst idea in home modeling.  I just love when people walk from the garage into our house and see all my dirty laundry strewn around.   Oh just step over my underwear, sorry about that.  Just awesome.   I have always hated this room in our house.  It is pretty small to do much with and for 9.5 years I just lived with it.   Here is a pic of it before.   I can't believe I am actually posting this for people to see...

Things I disliked:



• I don't have any place to store anything.
• The junky wire shelves that don't hide anything.
• No place to fold clothes.

I started with wanting a countertop over the laundry machines.  I special ordered one from Lowes since I need a non-standard size of 36 inches deep to cover the full width of the machines and space from the wall.   The countertop only costs about $175, I thought that was a steal of a deal.

I also wanted some cabinets to help with storage.  I just purchased some pre-fab ones also from Lowes since I didn't need anything fancy.   I have never installed cabinets in my life.  My brother convinced me they were easy and I also found this super helpful YouTube video.  I love YouTube.

 Of course I tried to tackle this project by myself while home alone.  Smart, right?!?!  I started with a brand new stud finder.  Well, I couldn't find a stud.  At all.   Dug out my old stud finder.  The damn thing could only find one stud across a 100 inch wall.  Impossible.   I finally found another so I was able to hang the first upper cabinet as the video demonstrated.  I removed all the doors, pre-drilled the holes in the back, and had my level ready.   It was actually really, really simple to hang the first one.  I was pumped.

Then it was time for the second one.  Got all my prep ready, had the clamps standing by, and was ready to find the next studs.  Nothing again.  NOTHING.  Lots of swearing ensued.   Studs should be either 16 or 24 inches apart.  The only thing I could think of was that this room was different since it was designed as a laundry room.  I went for it and measured 16 inches from the last stud and then another 16 inches.  Drilled my holes and away I went....

This is wear I really, really, really should have had another set of hands.  Here I am holding this super heavy double cabinet while half standing on a step stool, half sitting on my washing machine trying to get it level.  Holy F! that was hard.  It was basically impossible. I finally got one screw in and quickly clamped it to the other one.   I went to drill the second hole and no stud.  WTF!!!  How is that even possible?!?  I was beyond frustrated, swearing, sweating, and exhausted from holding this damn thing up against the wall.  

I would recommend you don't remove the shelves in my cabinet. You will find many holes where I drilled trying to find a stud.  The  stud configuration of this room defied logic.     Thank goodness the shelving covers my mistakes....or the builders mistakes in my opinion.

Next was the countertop.  I pulled the washer and dryer out as much as I could and used two L shaped brackets to secure it to the wall.  More issues trying to find a stud.  More swearing and sweating.   I may have also chucked the stud finder as far as I could across the room.

After the brackets were in place, I needed to cut out a section of the counter for the water faucets. I used a jigsaw and it was super easy to cut through the counter.  I then had a GENIUS idea.  I flipped the cut piece over and it covers the open space.

You can see from the photo above that it looks liked I planned it that way.  That stroke of luck sort of made up for all of the bruises on my arms and legs.

I reassembled the laundry room.   I added a shelf between the cabinets and wall.   That too was very easy to cut to size with a jigsaw.   I also wanted to add handles to the doors of the cabinets since I knew for sure there would be dirty fingers on them.   I  had leftover handles from by kitchen project so I didn't have to buy anything special.

I think I measured them 10 times before I drilled the holes. I was so nervous that I would mess up the holes and then I would be really screwed.  But I did it!

 

 So here is the finished project.

It is such a major difference for this room.  I love it.   I cannot tell you how awesome it is to have a table to fold laundry. I used to just dump the clean clothes in baskets and they would sit there for weeks until I HAD to fold them and put them away.