Laundry Room Ceiling Repairs

Remember back in March when Craig accidentally stepped through the ceiling in the laundry room on the first day of our kitchen renovation?  Well we’ve finally gotten around to fixing it. 

Don’t get me wrong… we did a very quick, very temporary fix right after the incident occurred.  However, there was still a medium sized section of plaster missing around the duct that connects to the HVAC unit in the laundry room. 

And with winter coming we wanted to make sure that hole into the attic was covered up.  Not to mention the fact that we wanted to add more insulation to the attic and it would be best if there weren’t a hole in the laundry room ceiling for insulation to fall through.  So, a few weeks back we decided it was finally time to fix the ceiling.

Craig went into the attic and moved as much of the insulation away from the laundry room ceiling as possible.  Then he removed a large section of the old ceiling (which the former owners had previously patched with wood paneling and sheet metal) in addition to some of the remaining plaster around the HVAC duct.  This left him with a pretty significant hole in the ceiling.

He then measured and cut pieces of sheetrock to fit.

Next he very carefully screwed the drywall in to place, making sure he didn’t accidentally screw into a water line in the attic (like our sheetrockers did when hanging the drywall in the new kitchen).

Once the sheetrock was hung Craig used mesh drywall tape and joint compound to give the seams a rough patch job.  He also filled in the small gaps around the HVAC duct and wiring with Great Stuff just to make sure that we wouldn’t get any cold air in from the attic this winter.

We’re not going to worry about sanding the ceiling and pretty-ing it up right now.  We’re still planning to move the HVAC unit into the attic (which would free up almost half of the square footage in our laundry room for a mud/storage area!) and we figure there’s no point in smoothing it all out and making the ceiling perfect when we’ll have to do it all over again in a few months.  So for now it’ll just have to do. 

The Countertops Are In…

…and they sure do look amazing!  As I mentioned when we ordered them we went with Giallo Ornamental.  We love the pattern and color!  We think it helps to keep things light and bright in the room, yet still has lots of interest.  Here are a few shots of the completed granite! 

Here is our new, amazing peninsula that opens up from the kitchen to the family room!  We are in absolute love with it!  The new cooktop hasn’t been secured in place yet… just set in its spot after the hole was cut.  We hope to get it all hooked up this weekend.  As you can see though we still have to complete the wiring to it and install the vent for the built-in downdraft.  Hopefully the hubby can figure that out!

Here is our new stainless steel, under-mounted sink which we plan to finish the plumbing on this weekend!  I can’t wait to have a working sink in the kitchen again… washing dishes in a basin in the bathtub is getting really old really fast!

And here’s a little, last minute splurge (which the granite people didn’t charge us for!) in the laundry room!  I asked the installer last week if they could use the remnant pieces to make a countertop and backsplash for the base cabinet we installed a couple months ago. So glad I threw that out there… just goes to show that it never hurts to ask!  We plan to add hardware that will match the kitchen to help tie the two rooms together even more.

I am so glad to get the countertops checked off of the list… because this means we are now one HUGE step closer to having a usable kitchen (perhaps in another week?!?)! 

Woops!

Craig had a bit of an accident while working in the attic yesterday.  His foot slipped off of a ceiling joist and he ended up knocking a big hole in the laundry room ceiling… leaving the laundry room floor covered with insulation and pieces of plaster.

Now, I had mentioned before that we plan to repair the ceilings in the laundry room, but we didn’t plan to do this until after moving the HVAC unit into the attic.  I guess we’ll be doing it a bit sooner than we thought. 

On the bright side… with the exception of his pride, Craig was unharmed by the incident!

Laundry Room Quick Change—Part 3

Last time you saw our laundry room it looked a little something like this…

New paint, no more ugly HVAC ducts overhead, new washer and dryer… it was a great start!  But there was work yet to be done.  I hinted in my last laundry room post that we had plans to hang cabinets around the washer and dryer.  So here’s an update on how that went.

We were extremely lucky on this project!  Just like with the appliances, I had an inside scoop when buying cabinets for the laundry room.  You see, Lowe’s recently switched suppliers for their in-stock cabinetry… which meant that they had to do something with all of those old (yet still new) in-stock Woodgate cabinets that were lying around. 

But what in the world would they do with them?  Hmmmmmm…  Donate them to Habitat for Humanity of course!!!

I’m tellin’ ya’ it was just meant to be!  All of the Lowe’s stores in our distribution area have donated the remainder of their Woodgate cabinets to the Habitat for Humanity ReStores nearest to them.  Which means that the Resale Store for the affiliate I work at received about $35,000 worth of brand new (still in the box) cabinets (in oak, hickory, and white finishes) to be resold with the proceeds going to my office for the building of new homes for families in need.  And the price was most definitely right! 

So here’s what we bought to fill the wall around our new washer and dryer…

• 2 – 24 in. wall cabinets in white
  • Original Lowe’s price $132 each for total of $264
  • Habitat Resale Store price $45 each for total of $90
• 1 – 30 in. wall cabinet in white
  • Original Lowe’s price $156
  • Habitat Resale Store price $50
• 1 – 24 in. drawer base in white
  • Original Lowe’s price $172
  • Habitat Resale Store price $50
• 1 – 3 in. wide x 30 in. long filler in white
  • Original Lowe’s price $16
  • Habitat Resale Store price $6
• 1 – 96 in. long toe kick in white
  • Original Lowe’s price $9.25
  • Habitat Resale Store price $5

So that makes the subtotals…

• Lowe’s = $617.25
• Habitat Resale Store = $201

And when you add tax (which is 9.5% in the state of Tennessee) the final totals come to…

• Lowe’s (what we would have paid if we bought them regular price at Lowe’s) = $675.89
• Habitat Resale Store (what we did pay!) = $220.10

Which means a savings of $455.79!  That’s enough to pay for all of our new lighting for the kitchen and then some… I’ll take it!!!

So, if you’re in the market for some new cabinets… maybe for a similar laundry room re-do… or for your garage… or even for your kitchen… contact your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and see if they have any new cabinets from Lowe’s!!!  Even if you don’t have a ReStore near you and have to drive to a neighboring county it’s still definitely worth it for the money you would save!  To find a Habitat ReStore near you click here.

So now that I’ve properly plugged the Habitat ReStores and I’ve let you all know what a great deal is out there, let’s move on to what we did with the cabinets.

Now Craig and I have absolutely no experience hanging cabinets… just the idea of hanging cabinets sets me into a shear panic… but Craig was convinced that we could do it.  And with it just being a laundry room and not our soon to be new kitchen (which we’re leaving up to the pros) I agreed to give it a whirl.  Since neither of us have any experience with this sort of thing we relied heavily on the advice of Craig’s best friend… Google!  There are a ton of great tutorials out there and a few different methods to use when hanging cabinets.  We chose to use the French Cleat system since we didn’t want to have to move the washer and dryer and the cleat would support the weight of the cabinets while Craig screwed them in place.  So we sort of ended up doing a blend of this and this.

The first thing Craig did was find and mark the studs.

Next we cut the cleats and attached them to the wall. (I apologize for the poor quality of pictures from here on… I dropped the camera in the middle of the project and broke it, so the rest of the pics were taken on my phone)

Then Craig attached the cleats’ mates to the back side of the cabinets and hung them in place.

Next he screwed the cabinets together and then screwed them directly into the studs.  And let me tell you… those cabinets aren’t going anywhere!

After that he set the base cabinet using this site as a guide.

We trimmed them out with fillers and moldings and then reattached the doors.

So our finished laundry room cabinet project looks a little something like this!  Not bad for a non-professional, huh?

We still have to put in a countertop on the drawer base, add hardware, new floors, move the HVAC, and a few other small projects, but definitely 200% better than before we started a few weeks ago.

Pedestals for a Steal!

Craig and I debated over and over whether we wanted to stack our new washer and dryer or install them side-by-side.  At the time we ordered our new appliances we had plans to stack them (so we’d have more space in the tiny laundry room), so we didn’t bother looking into buying pedestals through the special deal that Whirlpool was offering us.  Once the December 31st deadline for the Whirlpool deal lapsed we decided that we did in fact want to install the washer and dryer side-by-side (since we had plans to eventually move the HVAC unit into the attic and space wouldn’t be an issue). 

Once this decision was made we then had to make the decision of whether or not we wanted to sit the machines on the floor (which would mean that we would have to bend over to load or unload any clothes) or if we wanted to spring for the pedestals (MSRP $270 EACH).  There were pros and cons for each option, but Craig felt very strongly that it would just be too much of a pain (perhaps literally) to bend over to do the laundry.  So I gave in and agreed to consider the idea.

We began searching for a deal… because I refuse to pay $540 + tax (which happens to be 9.5% in the state of Tennessee) for something that I see more as a want than a need.  Unfortunately, when we first began looking the lowest price we found in our local stores or online was $249 per pedestal... a little better than paying $269 each, but still not great. 

Then one day, while searching the Lowe’s website for some kitchen reno-related items, Craig happened upon this…

The pedestals were listed online for half of what we could buy them for anywhere else.  Although a great find I still wasn’t 100% convinced.  But I agreed to go to Lowe’s with Craig and look at them so that he could try to convince me. 

When we got to Lowe’s the price on the shelf was $249.  We talked with the sales clerk and told him about the online price of $124.50.  He seemed shocked at the thought that they would be priced so low, but checked it out online… and low and behold he saw we were right!  He told us that he would manually correct the price, put the order in on the computer, and have the pedestals waiting for us up front when we finished our shopping.  So I gave in and agreed to buy two pedestals.

We went to check out and the cashier looked up the sale in the computer.  He told us that the total for the 2 pedestals was $124.50.  Our jaws about hit the floor!  I asked the cashier if the total was correct and made him double check that it included both pedestals (I didn’t want to get accused of stealing or get the cashier in any trouble)…  he said that it did and even asked another cashier just to make sure.  I was still confused by the price, but decided to roll with it and see what would happen. 

Then I gave the cashier a 10% off Lowe’s coupon that I had picked up from the Post Office (In case you didn’t know… you can request a “moving packet” from the counter at any Post Office and they’ll give you a free packet of moving-related coupons… one of which is a 10% off Lowe’s coupon) that I had been hanging on to for our next big Lowe’s purchase.  This brought the final sales price for 2 pedestals to $123!  Let me put that in perspective… the final sales price for 2 was less than half the cost of 1!!! 

To top it all off we had Lowe’s gift cards (that we had gotten from cashing in our old Discover Rewards points) to pay for the whole transaction!!!  So not a single penny came out of our pockets to pay for any of it… AND we still had plenty of gift card money left over to put towards our cabinet purchase!

Definitely a steal… and we have the receipt to prove it!!!

So, the morals of the story are…

1.  ALWAYS check the online price before going to the store to buy something!  The stores don’t always get it right, but if you know the online price is cheaper they have to honor that.

2.  Remember to pick up some moving packets if you’re planning any major (or even not so major) purchases at Lowe’s!  10% savings can add up quick!  Plus, they’re completely free and you can ask for as many as you want! 

Laundry Room Quick Change—Part 2

So, as promised, here’s a continuation of my last post on the laundry room mini makeover Craig and I tackled last weekend.  Here’s a reminder of what the room looked like after we cleared everything out (Better, but still pretty bad!).

So naturally the next thing we chose to do was paint.  Since the current paint was so old and disgusting we had to prime everything first.

Then we started to roll on our new paint color!  We already have plenty of yellows, blues and greens throughout the house so we decided to do something totally different… RED!!! 

We decided to forego the tinted primer route which had been recommended by a few different people.  Not sure exactly why, but I guess we just figured that the red would cover fine with a good base coat of Kilz primer.  WRONG!  The red did a horrible job of covering and in the end we had to put up 3 coats, using the entire gallon of paint, and there are still a few places that need a little touching up.  Needless to say, we won’t be making that mistake again! 

But in the end it was worth all of the time and effort because we are very pleased with the end result.  The color has really helped add a little fun and brightness to the space! 

By far the best part of the mini makeover thus far was Tuesday when our new appliances were delivered and our new Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer were hooked up!  I can’t tell you how exciting it is now to do laundry!

Now… we’re still not done in there.  We have plans to put some new white cabinets in (hopefully in the next week or so!) and eventually we’ll swap out the floor, repair the ceiling, move the HVAC, hide the water heater, and install recessed lighting.  So, we’re definitely far from done, but we’re a lot closer than before we did our weekend mini makeover!

Laundry Room Quick Change—Part 1

Craig and I are super excited that our new Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer (and other new appliances) are being delivered tomorrow!!!  Just the thought of being able to dry a load of clothes in 20ish minutes versus the 140+ minutes it now takes us makes me grin from ear to ear!  Amidst all of this new appliance, euphoria I guess we got a little crazy and decided to do a mini makeover of our laundry room.  Best of all… we decided to try to do it in just one weekend.

I know… crazy, right?!?

But we just couldn’t bear the thought of putting our new washer/dryer beauties in our old, cramped, disgusting laundry room.

So, the first task we decided to tackle was to remove the old, green metal cabinet in the corner next to our current dryer.  That’s right folks… our lovely green metal kitchen cabinets have a cousin living in our laundry room.  Aren’t you all jealous?!?  Anyway, between the green cabinet and the spearmint green paint on the walls we were just dying to rip it out… so we did!

Talk about yuck… so glad that thing’s gone! 

With the cabinet out of the way (literally) we were able to move on to our second task… removing three of the four large HVAC ducts that criss-cross our laundry room ceiling like a spider web (don’t worry… we checked with a friend who owns an HVAC company and he said that the ductwork wasn’t necessary for our system and that we still would have plenty of air flow without them).  Just imagine walking into our laundry room and looking up to see these.

Lovely, huh?!?  So, I’m sure you can understand why they too just had to go.  So we used a box cutter and wire snips to cut through the duct work…

…and then we used 6” caps to close off the holes on the HVAC unit.  We used caulk to seal the edges of the caps after slipping them into place.  Then we used aluminum foil tape to cover the caps and make extra sure no air would escape the unit.

Now instead of four giant ducts hanging over our heads and taking up valuable space in our laundry room we’re left with just one duct that travels into the attic and distributes air to the entire house.  Gotta love that!  Eventually, the plan is to move the entire HVAC system into the attic to free up even more real estate in the laundry room… but that’s definitely a project for another day!

Once we capped off the holes at the HVAC unit we then moved on to the metal “duct pieces” that were left in the walls.

Ripping these out left large holes in our living room and dining room walls (from where the vents used to be) that would need to be patched.  We cut out pieces of drywall to fit the openings.  Then we screwed some pieces of 2 x 4 inside the holes so that we’d have something to secure our squares of drywall to.  Then we whipped out the mesh tape and our our trusty putty knives and joint compound and got down to business!

And while we were at it we decided to fish the cord for our satellite and internet down through the wall and properly wire it to a receptacle on the other side… you know, instead of just having it drape down the laundry room wall and come out of a random hole drilled in the living room wall.  You gotta love living in a house that was built before internet and satellite/cable became a staple in every home!  So fishing the wires meant that we were, of course, left with even more holes to patch… but no worries… we were up to the challenge!

The last task we tackled before starting to try to put the room back together was removing the old washer and dryer.  I’d have to say that (just as with the green metal cabinet) I was very happy to see them go!  Maybe it was the promise of new, beautiful, energy-efficient appliances arriving in just a few days that made it all feel okay!

We were left with a blank canvas wall on which our washer, dryer, and green metal utility cabinet used to rest.  We are so excited to get to start our laundry room over from scratch! 

Please check back in soon… more on our laundry room mini makeover still to come!