Still the Consummate Hausfrau!

Garage Facelift

Some things just run in the blood.  When I was a young woman and owned my first home, I was constantly searching for ways to beautify my surroundings.  We didn’t have much money then but I got out my sewing machine and my crafting tools and went to work. I made my own draperies, rewired lamps, hung medicine cabinets, refinished furniture, and tiled floors and walls. For my birthday I asked for a drill and a sander.  Happily, I no longer have to go to such extremes to have a beautiful home.  Whatever I do now is for the sheer fun of it.  However- and there is always a however-I have this really awful laundry nook…

I’ve blogged about this before so you know how much this has bugged me. The first photo shows my laundry nook in the garage.  It is in a deep closet with louvered doors, ugly cabinets, a bare wood shelf and loads of dust, dirt and spider webs.  The floor is concrete and stained from years of oil leaks. The second photo shows the nook and the empty space beside it where we store our ladders. There was no laundry tub so no way to wash off muddy hands or shoes, remove stains in fabrics, or wash my pup Frazier.  Did I mention that I like to have everything look beautiful?  Just because you have to do wash, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be in a nice environment. Our house was built in 1987 so laundry rooms were not as popular then as they are now.

Last week we finally had a handyman come over to install a laundry tub and shelves.  Paul and  I disconnected the washer and dryer and moved everything out of the nook. While Paul painted the nook, I painted the louver doors and the cabinets.  Everything got 2 coats of Decorator White in a semigloss finish, completely covering the dingy old beige primer that had been on the walls since the house was built.  The next step is to lay a comfort mat in the laundry space to extend over to the house door and recycling area. This should help to cover up some of the oil stains left by the previous owners and will make it easier for me to keep that whole section clean.

The other side of the garage houses our car and the workbench. We will work our way around the space, painting everything white and re-organizing the storage. Then we’ll paint the ceiling.  I’m actually pleased that I don’t have to shlep down to the basement to do wash.  As Paul and I get along in years, we’ll appreciate the proximity of the washer and dryer to the kitchen. The one drawback is that woodworking projects in the garage have a way of depositing sawdust and dirt in the nook area.  I think that I will install some fabric behind the louvers in each door to filter out the worst of it.  Stay tuned for some updated photos in the next couple of days as we move around the space, improving as we go.

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