Organization Tips - 2/12

Laundry room Update & Lowes giveaway

This Giveaway is now CLOSED!

Hey guys! I am so happy to be able to share with you today an update on our Laundry Room. This room has been a work in progress for WAY too long. I shared with you in January mid way through our progress and asked for your advice. Thanks for everyone who shared. I did read each and everyone and even got a couple of emails with some great advice that actually helped push me in the right direction…so thank you. I have the best readers!

We built the washer and dryer platform in January early this year.

We started the actual remodeling process on this room way back before Thanksgiving when we painted our lockers white. I was really worried about painting ALL the cabinets white in this room, so I was struggling with trying to decide where to go next but knew that I was not happy with the final overall look of the room.

Then, we got crazy busy with the remodel of our kitchen and getting our wood flooring installed during December, January and February. So this room just sat in limbo…waiting patiently (ha!) for its turn.

Well, I got the perfect burst of energy to finally get this room ship shape during April after Snap of course! As you know, I am one of Lowe’s Creative Bloggers and our challenge for this month was to give a room a new facelift. Just the motivation I needed to finally tackle this room once and for all.

And I am really happy with the final outcome. There are still a few things to get just right…like the items on the shelves and the right window treatment…but overall I am loving it. I am so glad we were brave enough to paint the cabinets all white. The room is so bright and fresh now!

Here is what we did for the update:

Added Crown Moldings and painted
Updated Baseboards and made them taller…tutorial post coming soon
Painted Black Cabinets White
Added new cabinet hardware
Made some shelf with corner brackets and wood…tutorial post coming soon
Framed in new window with molding
New light fixtures
New door knobs on closet doors

Laundry Room Before

Laundry Room Mid Remodel

Here are some other earlier updates we have made to this room if you are interested in checking them out as well.

Build a Closet/Locker Shelf
Cat door underneath the sink cabinet (hidden cat food and litter box…GENIUS!)
Kids Organization Bulletin Board (old version) & (newly updated version)
Laundry Organization Shelves
Build a washer and dryer platform

One lucky Idea Room Reader is going to win a $100 Gift Card to Lowe’s as part of Lowe’s Makeover Challenge.

To enter: Simply leave me a comment on this post and if you have a room you would like to make over, I would love to know which room and why.

That’s it! One comment per person please.

*Giveaway is open to US residents age 18 and over only and closes Friday, May 4 at noon MST. Winner will be chosen at random and has 24 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen!

Be sure to head on over for your FREE Subscription to Lowe’s Creative Ideas Magazine:

**I was given a gift card by Lowe’s to create my Lowe’s Makeover Challenge this month. However all opinions and statements are my own.

April 29, 2012 · Filed under: DIY Tutorials, Giveaways, Home Decor, Home Remodeling, Organization Tips, Sponsors Tagged with Home Tour--Laundry Room, Laundry room decor, Laundry room ideas, Laundry Room update

Create Bulletin board

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Anyone else have a hard time adjusting to the time change this weekend? I am dragging this morning! Remind me why we are still doing this?

Anyways…despite the slow start this morning, we made some great progress on our HUGE remodeling project and we are getting so close to being FINISHED! Unfortunately all the little things take a lot of time and patience to finish up. But we are getting so close.

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Today I wanted to share with you a little bulletin board that I got up in my new office. It has been so nice to have everything in one spot, right where I need it. I wanted a spot to be able to display some fun memories and also tack up some inspiration.

I simply found frame that I liked that was on sale (50% off) at Hobby Lobby and painted it white and then distressed with sand paper. Then I found some cork board out of an old thrift store frame and cut it down to the right size.

I painted the cork board white since I didn’t want it to look like cork board. All I did was roll the cork board with my white paint that I used to paint the frame with. It took 3 coats to get it to the whiteness that I wanted.

Then I made a simple CREATE banner. For some reason I couldn’t get the pattern correct with the squares and triangles. Ha ha! I must have been tired or something. But I actually like that there is NO pattern to the banner. I must admit that normally I would automatically go for the square-triangle-square-triangle pattern as I am a very traditional and uniform person. When I was a kid I would ALWAYS color the barn red! But I like that it is a bit off. Seems to be a bit more “creative” that way.

Anyways…I am waiting to finish up a couple of more things in the office before I reveal the whole thing to you. I have to paint the ceiling and a few other small things before it can finally get checked off of the list!

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March 12, 2012 · Filed under: Home Decor, Home Remodeling, Organization Tips Tagged with bulletin board, cork board, craft room, create banner, office organization, office redesign

Hair Tool Storage Cabinet

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I FINALLY got a second to sit down and write up this post. Sorry to leave you hanging about what exactly was hidden behind this Bathroom Towel Rack Cabinet door. Many of you guessed there was a laundry chute inside. Oh how awesome that would be…I had one growing up in my parents house and though we DID use it for laundry, it was also used by us kids for many other devious purposes…hehe! But, unfortunately my laundry room is on the opposite end of the house so it would have to be quite the chute to get the laundry to the laundry room and I am sure that more than just a sock might get lost in there.

So, the next best option for me was to create my very own personal Hair tool Storage Cabinet. I do love my curling iron…when I actually don’t have my hair in a pony tail *ahem*! And…I have three girls…enough said!

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So that means I spend a little bit of time doing hair on Sunday mornings and before school (when they cooperate). And even though my girls have THEIR OWN bathroom, they tend to gather in our Master Bathroom. Can any of you relate?

We simply made a “box” that contained three sides. We left one side off the back so that we could tuck all the cords behind it to keep them from being seen all strewn about in the cabinet. We also left a small gap in the back so that the cords could fall down behind the box shelf.

Then we placed the box into the bottom of the cabinet. This becomes the base that we screwed the hair tool station onto.

We ordered this hair organizing station online.

Directly behind our customized towel rack, was an electrical outlet. We wanted to be able to utilize this without having the electrical cords showing so we did what any normal person would do…

We took (and by we…I mean “the hunky Mr. Idea Room”) drilled some holes in the back of the cabinet so that we could cut out the cabinet directly where the electrical outlet was.

After the 4 “pilot” holes were drilled Mr. Idea Room took his jigsaw and cut out a small rectangle to expose the outlet to the inside of the cabinet. Then we placed our electrical strip inside so we had plenty of spots for all of our hair appliances.

I LOVE it! I love being able to turn on the curling iron or flat iron and let them heat up and not be cluttering up the counter top. They are hidden AND out of the way. Just the way this momma likes to have things that she uses on a daily basis.