Lost Sock Sign

Time for a little silly project.

We are Harry Potter fans over here, and I've been eyeing lots of cute "Free Dobby" lost sock signs on Pinterest.  Now that the laundry room is up & running, I decided to make one.

Supplies:
-I found board out in the workshop (already the right size and painted!)
-I had metallic craft paint & paint brush left over from doing the stencils in the master closet.
-I bought some letter stencils, but didn't end up using them!  Instead I used tissue paper & a pencil to trace the letters that I liked online.
-I used a blue sharpie for outlining, and then blue ribbon to hang the board & the clothes pins.

I put "tissue paper" in the supply list, but I used wax paper.  I wasn't thinking about how that would make marks on the computer screen as I was tracing!  Oops!  Luckily it all wiped off with a little effort, but save yourself the trouble and use tissue paper instead!

After tracing the letters off the computer screen, I flipped the paper over and traced the backside of it.  

This will allow me to lay it right on the board and trace it again on the front side, so that the pencil lead from the back will transfer to the board.

It's faint, but then you can just go over it again directly on the board, if needed.

Yes- a lot of tracing, but makes it easier for those of us who can't free-hand the letters!

Next I got to work painting the silver inside the lines.

It wasn't as crisp as I wanted, so I decided to use a blue sharpie to outline the letters.  The sharpie gave me better control than I had with the little paint brush.

Then I took a stable gun and attached some blue ribbon for hanging on the wall, and also for hanging socks from.

Here it is hanging on the wall in my laundry room...

I should mention here that I wish we only had 5 single socks around here... there's actually a bucket of them sitting on top of the dryer!  This may motivate me to go through them though and toss any that are never going to find their mate!!!

Cleaning up! (The Laundry Room)

I can't believe the last blog post on the laundry room was when it got painted.  For quite a while, we had it functioning, but not looking so pretty.

I had lots of decorating plans for in here though!

Here's where we are now!

Well, that's with everything put away.  It's usually more like this... (I will admit I did remove several laundry baskets filled with dirty clothes out to the hallway for the pics!)

Having the laundry room on the same floor as the bedrooms/bathrooms has been a game changer!  No more baskets of laundry waiting to be folded, or piles of folded clothes waiting to go upstairs, on the first floor. It truly saves time & effort.

I like that there's enough room for me to leave the iron board up.  I use it to sort clothes when I'm folding.  I'm also wearing more items from my closet because the decision isn't based on what doesn't need to be ironed!  It's not such a hassle to quickly press off a blouse that needs it, rather than pass right by it.

The shelves above the washer & drier were from the local home improvement store.

The old wringer was strategically placed on the washer to hide the hose connections in the back.

I still am annoyed with the plumber for placing them so high up.  Speaking of the plumber... he never did get the laundry room sink installed.  That's still sitting on the floor.

Can you tell the plumber was the one part of the project that I completely disliked?

After fighting to get him to fix the upstairs heat from November until June ('cause who needs heat all winter!?!) we're just glad to be rid of him. In addition to poor workmanship, he gave me the creeps.

Anyway, enough of that- back to the happiness of the finished laundry room!

This little guy is a clothes line...

On the wall above the ironing board, I hung up some cross stitching and sewing items.

On the wall behind the door, the blue cabinet fits nicely.   It holds all of the laundry detergent, drier sheets, etc.

I put some hooks on the wall to store extra hangers.
I still need to figure out something for the wall above the blue cabinet.

When the door is open, you don't even see that stuff.  

View from the hallway

Some detail shots:

Heating

As mentioned in the closet post, the plumbers showed up and started installing the heating...

They started on the downstairs sections as well.

I'm not crazy about the baseboard (water) heat, since the rest of the house is steam radiators.  But this is what they recommended and does seem to make sense for tying it into the rest of the system.

Laundry Room- Painting Complete

Hopping over to the new laundry room... we decided to start painting before they brought up the washer, dryer and installed the sink.  Easier to do it now than have to get behind those as they are hooked up!

We chose gray- the same as our bedroom ("Wet Pavement").  

From the hall doorway

Reverse

Here it is with the plastic off the floor...

The tiles need another wipe down to clear the grout film

The trim still needs to be installed, as well as the heating. The light fixture, washer, dryer & sink are all ready to go- just waiting on electrician & plumber.  We purchased a white wood shelf to hang above the washer & dryer.  I've got a box of items that I'm all ready to decorate it with!

Laundry Room Tile

We've got some tiling going on upstairs!

Here's the laundry room floor tile, with the spacers in place...

There was a few days before he'd be able to get back to grout, and we had all of the priming stuff out from the kitchen, so we ran up and primed the ceiling and walls up here!

And then the grout was added... we chose a very light gray.  It always gets messier, before looking better!

From the hallway doorway

From the corner on the same wall as the hallway door

And a few days later, we have this...

From the hallway door

Reverse

I still need to wipe it down another time to get rid of the film on the tile.  I want to get in there and paint the walls before we install the sink or bring up the washer & dryer.

I guess it's a good thing the master bedroom is sitting empty, since it allowed them to set up the little tile cutting station in there!

Laundry Room Cabinet

I'm getting antsy and want to do some decorating!  A few weekends ago, we were trying to stay outside to keep out of the drywall guy's way.  Here's the little project I found to work on... of course, I completely forgot to take a "Before" photo.

I had a vintage metal cabinet that we picked up back when we lived in our old house.  I always used it in the laundry room for holding the laundry soap, bleach, etc.  It was looking pretty beat since it's been in the basement of this house, which is pretty icky.  There were a few rust spots and tons of spider webs!

I emptied it out, took it outside, cleaned it with a wire brush and sanded some of the rusty spots.

Then I used a blue spray paint to paint it inside & out.  

I chose the blue to compliment the Laundry Sign that I am going to hang near it.

So now it's being stored out in the barn until the laundry room is done.