A friend in need - indeed!

Intro to a New Challenge

Now that I've completed my 3 room, 9 month, $3000.00 challenge successfully, I'm ready to move on to another.  My best friend for many, many years has provided a doozy!  She and her husband (Lu and Chris) have a beautiful old small farmhouse/Victorian style home.  The back entrance serves as their laundry room and also houses a small freezer, 2 cat boxes, recyclables, and various day to day household items.

This space is dark and small.  It is an added on porch with a slanted roof, 5 windows and doors leading to the exterior, the kitchen, and the basement.  The walls and ceiling have dark brown paneling.  The windows have trim painted dark forest green.  The trim work around the doors has never been completed.  The floor is a cement slab that has seen better days - we think!  There is a history of bees and squirrels roaming around in the ceiling, hence the expanding insulation oozing through the seams of the panels.

My friends deserve much better.  They are hard working, caring individuals.  They lead very busy lives working and caring for their family and friends.  I've done many and various projects with Lu.  We feed off each others' creativity and have a blast working together.  For this project, they will be doing much of the labor without me.  The budget is around $750.00.  Take a look at the space as it is today, then we'll discuss goals.

West facing windows

Window to kitchen and door to the right goes to the basement

Ceiling angles will be a challenge

Exterior door straight ahead and kitchen door to the right

Hanging clothes area needed for drying

Water, electrical outlets, and dryer exhaust present their own challenges

Goals

A couple of main goals are clear - light up the area and provide storage.  Additionally, I have proposed ideas for improved functionality, such as, a place to sit to take off wet shoes and boots, coat hangers, an electronic station to charge phones, and shelving to house recyclables and other household items.  I provided a Pinterest board to serve as a tool for communicating what I understood my friends wanted, what suggestions I had, and as a vehicle for them to let me know what was right or wrong or needed tweaking.

Getting started

We started with a space plan to ensure we incorporated as much functionality as possible without overcrowding the room.   Or should I say we created a space plan to eliminate the overcrowding already in the room.  The room is just under 100 square feet and "L" shaped.

Chris did not think he needed anything in the room.  It was to be all about what Lu wanted.  (Happy wife, happy life - we love that!)  As we analyzed how the room is actually used, we found that marital bliss can be enhanced when there are places to store those every day items and even those transitional items that need a temporary home while in use.  Here are some of the pieces we plan to build for the room and their functions:

1. Two low cabinets with doors that will house the litter boxes and also serve as benches.   The doors will have holes large enough for the cats to enter to do their business.  (IKEA will help here.  See picture below.)
2. One cabinet to house 2 kitchen trash can size bins for rags and dirty work clothing.
3. A set of shelves over the bin cabinet.  The top of the cabinet may serve as an electronic charging station.
4. A set of shelves behind the washer and dryer. 
5. A set of shelves at the entrance to hold recyclables and more.

'Ikea Hackers'

The Real work begins

Lu and Chris started the demo by removing the paneling.   They found the insulation was not in the best of shape.  This is the best time to bring in new insulation.  I joined them for this effort.  It took a while to get our groove.  Lu and Chris - both 6 feet tall or more worked on the ceiling while I put in some of the wall insulation and beefed up the wood in the area between the 2 x 4's along the floor in anticipation of anchoring drywall and base board.

Next up will be installing drywall.  The only drywall experience I have is the patching I did with the challenge that started this blog.  I don't think any of us have done an entire room.

Have you remodeled a laundry room?  I'd love to hear about your challenge.  Please comment.  If you have trouble commenting on this blog, let me know via Facebook.

and friends!