Updated Exposed Wood Shelf

This is a little project that is pretty quick and easy, yet makes such a big difference.

My laundry "room" is nothing more than the laundry stuff behind two sets of bi-fold doors. It's in the mudroom hallway, directly opposite of these hooks. When we first moved in, my dad helped me hang up this melamine shelf that I had hanging around to put my laundry essentials. I didn't get a wider shot, but directly to the right of the shelf is a window so there's no place to hang a cabinet. That's why I had to make do with just a shelf. Not to mention, that it would be hard to get to anything that would be on an upper shelf.

Anyway, even though I'm the only one who uses this room and the doors stay closed when I'm not actively putting clothes in/out of the washer or dryer, I still wanted to do something about the exposed edges of the shelf. I know they make some kind of tape you can iron on, but I wanted to do something prettier.

I first cleared everything off the shelf and purged and organized.  I filled up a mason jar with oxyclean so I wouldn't have that big box to pull down every time I needed it. Got rid of stuff I didn't use anymore, and put all the free samples into a little container.
 

Then I went off to Home Depot and got some nice, but not too thick, moulding. I'm still getting over my fear of power tools, so I got out my handy miter box and cut two pieces to size. Each piece had a straight edge that would sit flush with the wall, and a 45 degree angle edge where they would meet at the corner.

Just squeeze a strip of liquid nails across the whole piece and put it up.

I held them both in place for a few minutes and then used painter's tape to hold it in place until it was dry.

Here's a view from underneath, but I think only my kids are at a height where they could see it.

There was still a tiny gap between the shelf and moulding and the corners did not meet up perfectly, so I used a little caulk to close the seam.

Much better!

You will notice that the big tide on the left has one of the cups that you pour into. I've been keeping it in a bowl since for some reason the sides of it always get sticky, but a styrofoam bowl did not fit with my new plan.

I then remembered that we had some old tiles in the basement that the previous owners had left us...

Perfect! I cut up a felt pad (that's mean do go under furniture) and put a quarter in each corner.

Much better! Since we all love a good before and after:

There you have it - an easy and inexpensive project that makes a big impact. What have you been working on this weekend?

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Home Stories A2Z | House on the Way | At the Picket Fence | DIY Showoff | Beneath My Heart | Thrifty Decor Chick |

Mudroom Reveal

Alright, so when I left off, we had installed the outer "frame" of the board and batten. Next to go up were the vertical battens. My amazing brother-in-law continued to help out with the project (like bringing all his tools) and used his nifty L-square to make sure everything was straight.


My son loves to "help" and got in full worker-man gear and got out all of his tools :-) Can't forget the hard hat and goggles - safety first!

Then the horizontal wood piece for the hooks went up.

And finally the smaller battens on top. You can see that not everything is perfect and that's okay! That's why we have wood filler, putty, caulk, etc. You can also see that we had to notch out a little opening for the light switch and the dremel was really useful for that. I don't have a picture of it, but my brother-in-law used his router to make a nice "top/shelf" across the moulding, using a plain piece of wood. It was way cheaper than getting a piece of crown moulding and easier to install.

Here is the wall all patched and painted. It looks so much better already! Still on the to do list: replace beige light switch and cover with a white one, remove old hooks, figure out what to do with the fuse box and hang up new hooks.



Ta da! New light switch, new hooks installed, and new pictures to kill two birds with on stone. The first vertical frame covers up the fuse box. I used Command picture hanging strips so it is easily removable whenever we need to access the panel. And the second vertical frame covers up the screw holes from the old hooks. Plus, I get to see these beautiful pictures everyday when I come and go. It looks so pretty that I almost didn't want to hang anything up, but that would've defeated the purpose of this whole project, right?!

Here's what it looks like on a typical day, I'm keeping it real folks. Magazine worthy: no, but functional: definitely!

How do you organize and manage your entry way?

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We've Got a Plan

In case you missed it, I last wrote about finding a way to organize our back entry and had board and batten as my inspiration for design. This is the plan I came up with:

The total wall width is 71" and I chose 56" as the height because as you can see in the original post, there is a fuse box right there (for the portion of the house that was added on about 30 years ago) so I wanted the top of the moulding to come just underneath that. I wanted the "frame" of the board and batten to be the same width all around, with the "interior" battens narrower than that, and then decided how many battens I wanted. Then I just did some math to come up with the width of the spacing. I also decided to do two rows because I know there is a lot of stuff that needs to be hung up and I didn't want it to be all smushed together.

I went to Home Depot with my amazing brother-in-law (who you'll see a lot of coming up!) and we decided to use MDF for everything except the two horizontal boards that would have the hooks. He recommended to use wood for these because then we'd be able to screw them right into the studs and it would be able to hold a lot more weight. Kids have heavy knapsacks these days, you know!

I also picked out these hooks for the top row and these hooks for the bottom row.

Actually, they both have a chrome finish but I couldn't find the first one in chrome online. It wasn't my first choice, but they go with the handles of the closets that house the washer/dryer directly across from where they will be hanging. One of these days I can change them up or spray paint them something different.

The first step was painting the wall behind where everything will be installed. Then we removed the old baseboard and shoe moulding. Man, was that hard to pry off! (Note: hammer and crowbar below.)

We left the existing hooks up so we'd have something to hang our stuff on in the meantime. Then we put up the vertical pieces on either edge, keeping my original plans handy. Remember, measure twice, cut once! :-) And after that the two wood horizontal pieces where the hooks would end up going. We used glue and then screws to make sure it was in nice and tight.

Stay tuned for the next step!

Plans for the Back Entry

So we have a little situation by the back door.  It's become the dumping ground for coats, bags, shoes, cold weather accessories (and shovels, etc.). This door leads right to the driveway so it's the main entry/exit way. We were using a set of hooks but everything was so jumbled together that it was nearly impossible to take off one coat without the rest of them falling down. Not to mention that the kids couldn't reach the hooks themselves so they always needed someone to help them hang their things up. We needed a better solution. And stat!



I have seen so many beautiful rooms with board and batten and I thought this little "mudroom" would be a great spot to put some. Here are some inspiration pictures I love. (Click the pictures to go to the source.)

From Centsational Girl, this is in a hallway and the hooks are at a perfect kid height and I love the row of photos on top.

The Nester put hers in her office and I like that she put it up about two-thirds up her wall.

Thrify Decor Chick's board and batten is pretty much what I am envisioning, but mine will be a larger scale version of her. I like that she has two rows of hooks to maximize hanging space and I like that the vertical battens are the same width as the height of the horizontal ones.

Stay tuned to see how this plays out! Off to the hardware store....