Operation Laundry Room {Lighting}

Do you remember how we tore out our shower and moved the washer and dryer into our giant main-floor bathroom?

Don’t worry, I barely remember either. This project goes off and on our radar like… wow I almost wrote a really inappropriate metaphor. Actually I totally wrote it. Then I erased it. Because this is a family blog, and we’re only rated PG13.

My point is that not a lot has been done in this room lately, except for lotsa laundry. And lotsa potty. This is where we left ya last time.

With the building of the patio in full-swing, almost everything else is on the back burner. But I realized that some progress had been made in this room since our last post that I never shared! It’s not ground-breaking or anything, but I felt an update was in order.

Also, this may be a subtle *wink* to Nick that I’d like us to get back on the ‘Laundry Room Bandwagon’ sometime before Christmas.

So back when we took the shower out, it left our ceiling looking a lot like this…

…which was fine, because we were wanting to gouge out that horrifying fluorescent light and replace it with can lights that would be more pleasing to the eye. Although the drop-ceiling obviously makes the ceiling lower (thus making a room look smaller), we actually didn’t mind that we’re dealing with a drop-ceiling, because it makes all the electrical a lot more accessible.

The drop ceiling is basically just a grid suspended from the ceiling that fits the individual square panels to form a ‘floating’ ceiling. We needed additional ceiling tiles for where the shower used to be, as well as the fluorescent lighting. And since these specific ones were discontinued, we just bought new ones for the whole room.

We felt it would be silly to go to the effort of doing an entire tutorial on installing can lights when our girl Brittany from Pretty Handy Girl has already done the work for us with this brilliant tutorial.

We can’t finish the ceiling all the way to the north wall because the cabinets will need to go in first.

But the good news is, some decent progress has been made on the bottom half. Aren’t those beastly suckers? So much storage!!

Can you imagine them with drawers and cabinet-fronts… and a counter that covers the expanse of the whole thing? Can.not.WAIT.

Know what else I can’t wait for?

A sink.

With which to wash hands.

Which some may find necessary in a bathroom.

I taped off the future vanity so I could picture it.

We’ve got grand plans for this vanity, but what I’m most looking forward to (besides running water) is what we’re going to do for lighting above the vanity. Believe it or not, we both had the same brilliant idea swirling around in our heads… that almost NEVER HAPPENS. We plan to have lots of dangly lights similar to this inspiration pic.

source

Only we’re going to use the sweet ‘vintage-esque’ Thomas Edison bulbs. We snagged 8 of these bad boys from our local home improvement store. It was a bit of a splurge at $20 each… but we went for it anyway! These types of bulbs can run $10-$15 just for the bulb, so the entire light fixture seemed like a great price at $20!

Can you picture it? Me too me too!

Here’s where we’re at with our list (and how it will likely stay for the immediate future):

• Tear out shower
• Reroute water/electrical for washer/dryer relocation
• Insulate/drywall/paint
• Move washer and dryer!
• Update flooring
• Replace toilet that gets clogged by even the smallest of turds
• Fix ceiling and install recessed lighting
• Build custom cabinetry (including vanity)
• Countertops
• Install vanity lighting
• Add trim / crown moulding(?)
• Figure out wall color
• Backsplash

This Laundry Room Overhaul is just one of those GIANT PROJECTS that you have to break up into smaller projects so as not to get burnt out. And with this room being small and without windows, it just feels like a sin to be laboring away on this when there’s a garden to weed, a patio to be build, and dandelions to be picked.