We moved into this house in the fall of 2015. It was in great shape with no major issues, but the last updates look like they had been done in the late 90s/early 2000s. The kitchen had small glass mosaic tile backsplash, the floors were vinyl tiles in a sandy beige color. The carpet was your standard builder grade beige carpet, and the lighting was... well not my style.
During the pandemic we found ourselves with some extra cash since we weren't paying for daycare or commuting to work, and we started making some big changes, but true to my nature, I always looked for the best deal I could find.
One of the early changes I made was updating the laundry closet.
I pulled out the wire shelves (easy to do, but took a lot of strength surprisingly) and painted the small room. I had a hard time picking a paint color, and narrowed down my choices to
Sherwin Williams Dried Thyme
Sherwin Williams Dark Night
Sherwin Williams Cityscape
After picking up the samples and trying them out, I decided Dried Thyme had the prettiest look in the windowless room.
Next I picked up some select pine boards from Home Depot, two 6x12x1, and a few 2x4s. The room is 6' wide, so the large boards were almost a perfect fit. Did you know the corners of your rooms are never perfect 90 degree angles? So although my board should have theoretically fit, they had to be trimmed a bit to accommodate the space.
The 2x4s were cut to support the larger boards, and secured to the walls with screws into the studs. The bracing is installed in the back of the fall and into the sides as well. Because of this, there was no need to secure the boards to the bracing, they are simply placed on top, and can be easily removed whenever needed.
After the paint and the shelves, I changed out the light fixture. I got this one from Houzz.
The last step in the transformation was changing the floor. Although we had the entire upstairs flooring changed to hardwood, I thought that wouldn't be a great choice in a small room that gets incredibly humid on a regular basis. The vinyl floor stayed the same for nearly a year until I updated it this weekend.
Last week I was at Lowe's and found this tile on clearance for .34 cents per tile! I only needed 25 for my small ( a few extra in case I messed up).
First step was deep cleaning that floor. It was pretty dirty from all of the lint that had accumulated.
PSA: CLEAN THE LINT IN YOUR LAUNDRY ROOMS!
After I got the room sparkling clean:
I did a dry run with the tile and laid it out to see what it would look like, and what which tiles would need to be cut. The hardest cuts were going to be in the front corners. I managed to do those correctly on the first try. I just measure with a ruler, made marks with a pen, and cut accordingly. I used heavy duty scissors and that did the job nicely. I placed the tile directly on the existing floor.
The whole peel and stick tile process took about an hour. It was super quick and easy, I highly recommend it! It's been down for about 24 hours and I haven't seen any movement or loosening of tiles. With this tile you can choose to add grout if you like, I did not for simplicity’s sake.
Of course now I knew I needed new appliances, so last month, Best Buy had a huge appliance sale and I managed to score a Samsung washer and dryer. They were delivered today, but unfortunately the valves for the water lines were leaky when the installers turned off the water. That means they couldn't install today. So I'm going work with my dad to fix the leaky valves in the next few days (when he has time... although he's retired... what's he doing???) And then we'll call Best Buy back to finish the installation.
So let me know what questions you have in the comments!
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