Large and Lovely Laundry Rooms

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apothecary jars, clothes pins, colorful rooms, drying rack, Home Depot, how to decorate a laundry room, ironing boards, large laundry room, laundry, laundry baskets, laundry bins, laundry detergent, laundry room, laundry room design, laundry room ideas, laundry room inspiration, recessed ironing boards, small laundry room, tile ideas, tile patterns, wrapping paper storage

I mentioned in my last post, Smart Little Laundry Rooms, that it takes real ingenuity to design a small space because every inch needs to serve a purpose and be maximized. Larger areas? Not as much. It’s a luxury…and a real curse (more surface area for junk to accumulate, more cleaning…)! But if you do have a dedicated or larger laundry room, how do you decorate it? Like any other room. Think about functionality first and then the aesthetics.

The paint color actually matches the ironing board and the shelves were painted as well to disappear into the wall.

Even here, they have a retractable drying rack as I talked about in my last post. Putting the clothing pins in a glass jar in very pretty. (In case you don’t know where to buy clothing pins, they sell them at Home Depot – I think a pack of 50 is $3. How do I know? I live at Home Depot!)

Again with clothing pins in a glass (apothecary) jar, as well as powdered detergent. See my previous post for a brilliant liquid detergent equivalent. Note that the fold out ironing board door is wallpapered on the inside too. It’s details like this that show incredible thought. Ready for the other half of the room?

Gold for How Much???

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A Detailed House, art, Best gold paint, Do it yourself, Gold finish, Hallway, Home Depot, Krylon, Krylon gold paint, Lowe, Lowes, paint, Rust-Oleum, Rustoleum, Shiny gold paint, Walmart

When doing a post, I usually do a lot of research and work on multiple projects at one time, which is why it takes me so darn long to do one measly post! I also like to ponder my projects (I can’t tell you how many mistakes I would have made if I hadn’t thought about some of these for a long time!) and try out materials to make sure I’ve thought of everything possible.

In my research, I found a great bargain that I wanted you all to know about:  Krylon spray paint, which I think is wonderful for achieving a gold finish (in terms of paint), is available at Walmart for $3.67 for 12 ounces! Wha-wha-what??? I couldn’t believe it! Currently, Krylon isn’t carried at Home Depot; they sell Rustoleum, which sells for (if I remember correctly) $8/for 8 ounces, and I’m not sure if Lowes carries it.

I sprayed a (white primed) scrap piece of wood for you all to see and took some pictures:

Taken outside in full sunlight, it looks like a very bright gold.

Adorable DIY Ideas for Kids’ Rooms

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Armoire, Baseball, children room decor, childrens room decoration, crafts, Craigslist, diy decorations, diy home improvement, DIY kid, DIY kids room, Do it yourself, Flat panel display, Home Depot, kid art, kid room, light fixture, Lowes, paint

While I work on my posts for how to make the carpet tiles and cornice boards, I thought I would dig into my files and show you some adorable, simple and inexpensive projects that I thought worthy of saving for future consideration.

Before flat screen TVs, many tried to hide their TVs in armoires. Now, those that bought flat screen TVs are trying to get rid of them!

I searched Craigslist while doing this post, just to see, and there were hundreds of armoires, many of them for free! Try to imagine them with a coat of paint, molding added to the top, different door knobs, added shelves, etc.

Here’s why:

Finding one this wide would require patience, but what child wouldn’t love a little nook like this?

Children adore hiding spots, so another option for an armoire, if you can find one with full length doors, is remove the back and place it in front of a door, so it’s a “secret” entrance, whether to a closet or a room.

OCD Eye Candy – aka Keeping Kitchen Clutter at Bay

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Atticmag, Bilotta, Build.com, cabinet, container store, Habitat for Humanity, Home Depot, kitchen, Kitchen cabinet, kitchen clutter solutions, kitchen island, kitchen storage, paint, pilaster, ReStore, Wood-mode

My mother used to say, “Everything has a home and a place.” This is a great philosophy in theory. She, however, did not have my two little ones going behind her taking everything out! My point is, storage solutions need to be easy in order to be ongoing. Otherwise, it was a nice idea that lasted a month or so.

Adding bottom cabinets to your pantry is a nice idea and I believe in making every space attractive. However, I would probably go to Home Depot and get stock cabinets, instead of incurring the cost of the higher quality kitchen cabinets for a pantry. OR there are building “left-over” stores and nonprofits, like Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore that run building supply depots.

I also have to comment on the curved cabinet of the kitchen island! I have never seen a cabinet that has a bow before! Gorgeous!! Via AtticMag

Ordinary to Extraordinary with the Crown Jewel – Molding!

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architectural detail, architecture, cabinet, caulk, ceiling, crown, Crown molding, diy, Home Depot, kitchen, molding, nail, paint, pantry, Pine, putty, Wood

Our completed projects: crown molding, cabinet molding, mantle shelf and pullout spice cabinets! This took our kitchen from completely boring and ordinary to extraodinary!

I love molding – just adore it. It takes a plain box and makes it pretty.

So with the success and ease of adding molding to our plain cabinets, surely the ceilings can’t be that hard. I applied the same principle, except the top piece had a 9″ face. That made corners very difficult…for my husband 🙂 Oh, Lord, were the corners difficult!!

But the beauty of 12′ ceilings is that mistakes are impossible to see and caulk can do wonders! I became a master sculptor, sculpting caulk and putty to fix the corners where we didn’t get it just right.

Taking Plain, Stock Kitchen Cabinets and Making Them Look Custom…and Expensive

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Adding molding to kitchen cabinets, architecture, Business, cabinet, Crown molding, Custom cabinets, Customizing kitchen cabinets, diy, Home Depot, kitchen, Kitchen cabinet, Making kitchen cabinets look custom, making stock cabinets look custom, Making stock kitchen cabinets look amazing, Making stock kitchen cabinets look custom, Making stock kitchen cabinets look designer, molding, paint, pilaster, Plain cabinets to fancy

Unless you are willing to shell out oodles of money (and I’m talking $100k +) for a custom kitchen, you need to work with stock cabinets. But, all is not lost – there are many ways to make them look custom and take them beyond what is the norm. Since I adore historic homes, I had decided upon 12′ ceilings.

At one point in my kitchen design, I had thought about stacking smaller, glass-front cabinets on top (which I still think would look great) but my mother talked me out of it.

(Note to any and everyone: it’s hard enough determining your own likes and style…involving another, ESPECIALLY your mother, makes decisions become painful. She will invariably insert her opinion in everything, like it or not, and it seeps into your brain, making you second guess every decision.)

This is what I envisioned:

Between the ceilings and the cabinets left a great disparity – not so great that I was alarmed, because I knew I had huge copper kettles that I could finally display, but it was noticeable and the scale wasn’t quite right. They simply must be adjusted and customized. My absolute favorite solution: let’s put molding on top! No, let’s put a LOT of molding on top!

But We Need Spice Cabinets!

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architecture, cabinet, cabinet face, Cabinets, diy, drawer, drywall, Filing cabinet, High end kitchen, Home Depot, home improvement, kitchen, luxury kitchen, Mantel, mantle, molding, pullout, rail, range, Spice, spice cabinet, stud, Viking, Wood

The bottom, pullout cabinets were already there. The top, pullout cabinets were not. This was not a good project for first-time DIYers, but we got through it!

Back to reality – we had finished the mantle above the range. Of course I *could* have stopped there. But really, I couldn’t.

I had seen the pullout spice rack cabinets and thought they would look oh-so-lovely on either side of our range. Problem was, NO cabinets fit the dimensions we were left with…GRRRR. I told my husband though, that I didn’t think it would be a problem because I was *pretty* sure I saw a segment on HGTV (or some home improvement/DIY show) where they made their own and it *looked super easy*. Plus, it was essential to my  design and would mirror the pullout cabinets underneath! Poor guy…he had no idea how frustrated he was about to become.

To the Kitchen!

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accessorize, architecture, corbel, crown, diy, Home Depot, kitchen, mantle, miter box, molding, shelf

The most blaring vision of debauchery was our kitchen as it was left vacant of the intricacies and details that had inspired me. It was not how the kitchen design was even specified. I had cut out pictures and shown the kitchen designer and my awful builder what it was supposed to look like:

Yet I faced a striped down version of it that was void of any detail. When I pointed it out to my builder that I had wanted an over mantle at the very least, he quoted us a figure that was 1/4 of the cabinet cost!!!!