After our kitchen transformation (see the post here), I knew the next project I wanted to do, and I promised Andrew it wouldn't take as long as the kitchen. I wanted to increase our storage in the laundry room. Really, really bad. This is what we had:
Clearly, it was lacking, considering we had stuff piled on the dryer all. the. time. And the shelf, although it was great, was clearly not able to hold everything we needed! So, I looked on a few other blogs, and got some ideas. But I ended up just copying what we already had. I knew I wanted two more shelves, so I just had to figure out dimensions and where to place them.
We ran to home depot, which is only 3 minutes from our house, AWESOME! And I was instantly discouraged. I didn't want to spend $100 on two shelves. I looked and looked to find something that could be cut down to the length we needed which was 75in wide! They didn't sell anything that was 150 in long that would work. :( So I figured I'd need to buy two 8ft (96in) boards and cut them. The only problem was finding something that was 15 1/2 in deep. I found the pre finished boards that are used for home shelving, but it was $25 for 8ft. No thank you! I didn't need pretty shelves, just functional ones.
I was at the end of my rope. My kids were reaching their "we'll be good in the store" limit, actually they were past it. And Andrew was trying so hard to find something only to be shot down with my "It won't work" glare. Andrew found the perfect solution! He found 3/4 in MDF board, which is similar to plywood. Our current shelf was made from MDF and it held up just fine. The great part was a 4 foot x 8 foot board was only $19. They cut it down to our specific measurements (LOVE Home Depot), with extra for another project, and it was awesome. I found great brackets to install the shelves, and we headed home.
Andrew sanded the front edge of the board to match the current shelf, and I started painting. Painting was the longest part of the project since I wanted to do 90% of the painting before we installed.
While the shelves were drying, we measured out the side supports, which were 1x2 boards. And put those up. I decided I wanted the distance between the shelves to be 12 in, 16in and 12in. I knew I wanted a larger shelf for taller items. And I also knew the top shelf would keep canning jars on it, so I didn't need it to be very tall.
We installed the side supports, and brought the now dry shelves in!
After setting the shelves on the side supports, we measured and installed the bottom supports. With all the supports, we tried to hit at least one stud, and use heavy duty anchors for anything going into dry wall. Each shelf should easily hold 100-120lbs. The only shelf that might be asked to hold something close to that would be the top shelf, canning jars, even empty, are heavy!
After we got those up, we were done for the night. We were so proud, because this project only took us 2 hours, and the longest was the drying time for the painted shelves! The cost was also awesome, for the wood, brackets and paint we used, it's an estimated $25! Seriously awesome.
Here is the finished and organized picture!
I LOVE side by sides:
So much more storage space!! I also added another touch on the opposite side of the room. (It's a tiny room, but it's on the opposite wall). When we moved in we salvaged a cabinet door during the remodel. I painted it with some chalkboard paint, but never got around to using it. Now...it serves as my "Honey-Do-List."
Awesome right? Well, that is all about our laundry room storage re-do! It was a pretty quick project and I'm so happy to have it done! Now, I have extra space in my garage and pantry where all of the canning jars, kleenex, and paper towels were being stored.
I hope you guys are finding some fun projects to do! Until next time, Happy Blogging!
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