Laundry room decor

Here’s what we moved in to:

laundry room before (washer)

laundry room before

laundry room before (dryer)

Basically a giant closet with the washer and dryer in it. Not a bad deal really but it lacked, shall we say, charm and any sort of class. Now we’ve moved in, we have shelving in the basement storage room so it was time to make the laundry room a decent place to frequent. I put all the extra traveling bags I had hung up inside a suitcase and on a basement shelf.

all the bags in here

Then all the hangers into a garment bag, also onto a basement storage shelf.

all hangers into a garment bag, to the basement

I removed the hanging bar, which wasn’t even screwed into a stud to reveal the shelf behind.To fill in the white wall without painting it I hung a large, blue-themed painting we had that was just hanging in the basement toy room. I got Hubby to push the washer ever so slightly further from the dryer so that I could wedge in a milk crate to store some of the laundry cleaning products.

a milk crate in between units

I put two 3M Command hooks on the side of the dryer, one for the black bag of missing socks, the other for the delicates washing bag.

dryer

I added plants, a diy scrapbook calendar I had made, and a lazy suzan that Hubby hated in the kitchen and voilà, a decent looking laundry room.

dryer

diy birthday calendar

laundry room decor

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DIY headboard update

There wasn’t anything too too wrong with our master bed, but it wasn’t nice.

Our bed, headboard, and the “always kiss me goodnight” stencil left by the previous owners.

I can do better.

I measured the length of the headboard between the two posts, 58 in, and sewed a white, waffle duvet cover we had (from where?) to that length. I then hung it over the headboard and safety pinned it at the bottom, under the bed.

The stencil/decal had to go.

free new headboard

But what to replace it with? I couldn’t just leave all that empty wall space. I FINALLY remembered that I had 4 unused small decor mirrors in the basement closet. I used my new beepy stud finder, found 3 studs because this is THE house and I will be hanging things properly, and hung the mirrors.

headboard remodel

The best news is that Hubby absolutely loves it! He usually just tolerates my decorating or thinks it’s “nice”, but this one got him.

Reuse girl’s clothes and make a skirt

You will need: one pair of pants your daughter has outgrown and one shirt that your daughter has outgrown.

Cut the pant legs off just above the knee, this allows for a seam allowance. Either pick the inner leg seams open or cut them off. I cut. Smooth out the pants and you will now have a pant triangle that is open on the inside, kind of like a letter “A”.

Cut each half of the shirts apart and slide a piece into the “A” and measure to fit. Sew the shirt to the legs.

reuse skirt

As you can see the skirt is rather pointy in the front so cut and hem that.

reuse clothes into skirt

Reuse test tubes for chalk storage

There is a giant chalkboard wall in my office and occasionally the kids like to come in and draw on it. Currently there is math on the wall which fills me with pride, joy and terror. I decided to make them a chalk holder so they wouldn’t keep bothering me for a new piece of chalk so I used some pieces from my chemistry collection.

Yes, I have secret chemistry lab equipment, science is big in my family, but I don’t have a room for all of it yet so I am trying to bring it out and about in the house until then.

Here is a balance, short test tubes and test tube rack.

reuse chemistry equipment

and chalk of course.

Reuse toilet paper tubes to hold pencils

With four bathrooms in this house and 2 kids, I can collect tp tubes in a hurry. I needed to organize all my scrapbooking pencils and computer cords so I took my tp tube collection, covered it in paper, taped it together and voilà.

If you’re going to cover your tube you will need a piece of paper 5 3/4 inch by 3 7/8 inch, Mod Podge and 2 paper clips. Paint the back of the paper with the Mod Podge, wrap around the tube (there will be a slight overlap) and hold in place with a paper clip.

Let dry for an hour and tape the tubes together for greater stability and space saving. Or don’t, it doesn’t matter that much.

reuse toilet paper tubes as pencil holders

into my bamboo bucket with other supplies

Reuse tin lid as coaster

I had this ill fitting lid kicking around holding scrapbooking scraps. When I upgraded to a cut out milk jug I needed to find a new purpose for the lid or throw it out. I recently painted the top of my small filing cabinet

paint filing cabinet

which sits beside my laptop and I used to always put my coffee on it, leading to stains. I didn’t want to stain my new paint job so I settled on the idea of making a coaster.

I spray painted the thing with a white primer then painted the sides blue. I crocheted a long chain of blue garden twine that Hubby had bought me to tie up my tomatoes and hot glued it down in a circular fashion both on top and inside the lid. Voilà, coaster!

reuse tin lid into coaster

reuse lid into coaster, inside

reuse tin lid into coaster, top

Reuse vitamin bottle as flower vase

So I finished me my cod liver oil supplements and was left with a largish, brown bottle. What to do, what to do? Flowers!

I cut the top off with a meat knife (I think a hacksaw would be slightly more effective but I haven’t unpacked mine yet), then ran the raw edge along a medium-hot iron to smooth it down. I freestyle hand painted this rose on the bottle

how to draw a rose

from:

http://www.thedrawbot.com/drawing/drawing-rose.html

filled it with dirt and planted “Oopsy Daisy” calendula seeds. I labeled the back of the vase with the name of the plant, when I planted it and when it will sprout (8-10 days) just so I’d know since I’m the idiot gardener.

reuse vitamin bottle for flower vase

Organize computer cords

I had given our computer cords a temporary home in a plain cardboard box until I could get something prettier for them.

cords before

The box made it easy to lift the whole tangled mess and vacuum underneath it. What I was looking for was a decorated cardboard box or hat box from the dollar store to coral the cords. I didn’t find one.

This morning, on my continued quest for that pretty box, I discovered that only Rona’s was open at the same hour that I was up. I found a $6 plastic box that was the right size for a power bar and a $6 can of spray paint, specific for plastic. I made the two meet.

a nice, sand-white, spray painted plastic storage box

I also had to buy a $5 drill bit, 1 and 1/8 inches in diameter, to put a hole in two sides of the box; one for the power cords and another for the router cords.

organize computer cords

I tucked all the cords inside and fit the lid on so no dust would get into the box and so the whole affair was hidden.

Now I have the same ease for vacuuming but the added bonus of the colour being right for the decor and all the cords being covered.

Upcycle office organizer

I bought an acrylic office organizer for my office where I could keep all those notepads, usb keys and other odds and ends corralled. It’s made of a clear acrylic and just lacked some pizazz and colour coordination.

I keep in on my newly painted mint green filing cabinet so I kept the colour in mind when I mined my scrapbooking collection and pulled out these aqua pieces.

upcycle office organizer

I just measured each slot and cut the paper to fit. I only applied glue (“Close to my Heart” liquid glass) along the top of the paper to hold it in place

Upcycle filing cabinet

My filing cabinet is actually broken but still functional so we’re planning to replace it sometime this year. In the meantime I wanted it to look a little more professional so I painted the top a mint green (the cabinet is beige) and added a hand painted border.

paint filing cabinet

sketched outline of border in pencil

I placed a few outline marks for my border in pencil at 1 inch from the edge.