The Big Little Laundry Room Redo Part III

Here I showed you the beginnings of our laundry room project.

Then here I told our pathetic wallpapering story, which was Part II of the laundry room saga.

So now I’m going to show you how it all turned out 🙂

When Hubby and I realized the wallpaper just wasn’t going to work out, we found some beadboard paneling that was workable. It was thin enough that we wouldn’t have to remove the baseboards, which was my primary fear. (I know, unfounded, but I’d just painted them!) The only challenge remaining was cutting the panels to fit.

 

 

Luckily, I have the sweetest husband in the world. Even though it wasn’t his project and he wasn’t really all that interested in it anyway, he stepped right in and completely took over all arrangements having to do with the Skil saw. He’d never used it before either, so we spent some time at HD talking to the guy in the power tools department 🙂

We had to buy saw horses. And it was about 20 degrees outside so we made a big mess in the garage.

He measured each wall and figured out how he wanted to cut the boards. Then he’d call me outside and I’d stand there holding the panel and getting sprayed with sawdust. A trick the guy at HD told us is to use blue painter’s tape over the line you want to cut (hence the blue tape in the picture!) And you cut from the front (painted side), to help to avoid jagged damaged edges on the visible side of your panel.

 

Then I’d take the cut panel inside, clean it (filthy!), and put it in place. Occasionally I had to sand down portions because they were just slightly too tall or whatever.

Then I’d drill pilot holes here and there with the “nail in the drill” method I told you about here, and then glued it in place with Liquid Nails. Then I drove in some nails and I was ready for the next one!

Here’s the first panel up. I left the crappy wallpaper on the walls. That might have been a mistake, but here’s why I did it:

1. It gave the illusion of bead board wrapping around behind the laundry doors, when really there wasn’t enough clearance for that. So you can see the overall effect here makes it look more even. 
2. I’m just a little afraid of the damage done to walls if/when I ever want to take down the paneling (due to the liquid nails). I figured if I’m gluing the panels to wallpaper, and then nailing them, they’ll still stay up just fine but if they ever come down, the wallpaper will just pull off the wall like normal wallpaper. Otherwise I was afraid taking down the paneling would result in literally pulling the drywall off the wall.

 

We had a little trouble with the paneling on one wall. Hubby cut it twice and it was a little better the second time around, but still not perfect. So we have a little area where the paneling sticks out a teensy bit (maybe 1/8 inch) past the corner into the kitchen. When I paint that room, I’ll take a sander (or that cool Dremel tool I saw on TV the other day!) and sand it down even with the wall.

See how the panel sticks out just a tiny bit? I’ll sand that off as part of the next room’s work.

I cut this corner of the chair rail to be a future outside corner. That way I can continue the chair rail into the kitchen if I want to, without replacing that piece of trim. If I don’t do a chair rail on this wall, I’ll just use a coping saw to cut this piece with a “front 45” cut so it will just nicely end right there. (My lingo – check out the chair rail post to see what I mean.)

We also had this problem on the other end of that same piece:

At the top, near the chair rail….

And at the bottom. Yeesh.

Sarah, at Thrifty Decor Chick, used wooden dowels in the corners of her beadboard island. They looked great! But this gap was way too big for dowels, so I glued a dowel in there just to provide support for all the spackling and caulk we’d be using!

Here are some “distance” pictures (probably what a normal person sees).

 

And some “up close” pictures of our fill-job (what I see):

 

I think I could get the spackling out again and clean up those jagged edges. (Spackling is like play-dough and it can crumble while you’re applying it.) I also used caulk under the bottom edge of the chair rail and at any corners that needed it.

But all in all, I think it turned out pretty great!

I finally found a “storage solution” for where those shoes are and I have a pretty shelf/hook in the works too. I can’t wait to show you when the “accessories” are all done 🙂

But for now, thanks for reading!!!