This post is sponsored by Wagner Spray Tech.
This Fall I had the goal of finishing off two spaces in my home that were driving me crazy. The first one is our laundry room, and with three kids and non-stop laundry this room quickly became my priority! (The other space is my closet and that is next on the list). Today I am going to show you the initial steps we took in the laundry room including painting and building a simple folding shelf over our washer and dryer. This has created a much more efficient laundry system and made life much easier, and dare I say made doing laundry more enjoyable!
We have lived here for over a year and this room was really driving me nuts, but I admit it took some time to figure out how I wanted to make it work for us. While I’d have loved to have a custom counter built, we have other house priorities so for now, this simple shelf provides a place for folding clothes. The room is a very basic 8×6′ space, I needed storage and an area to store laundry so a workspace was at the top of the list.
Before we built the shelf we first had to remove the lovely wire shelf the builder left and repair the walls, the damage meant we had to paint the whole room. Above you can see the before, and how there was literally nothing in the space as far as storage or work area.
Once the holes in the wall were filled and sanded, we painted the room a fresh clean white. To do this, I tried out the Wagner Smart Flow Roller and I have to say, this made painting the walls a breeze. We’ve shown you other paint sticks which make painting easier because they eliminate the need for a roller pan, cut down on mess and make painting faster as they hold reserve paint in the handle. What’s so great about this is that it is powered (by included batteries) so you flip a switch and it draws the paint in the handle then you flip a switch as you paint and the paint is pushed out through the roller.
It takes less physical energy and makes the painting go so quickly. I estimated each coat took less than 15 minutes, it made painting a breeze.
One thing to note is that I did have trouble getting the paint to load into the roller initially. The set up is straight forward, but you have to get the hang of filling the tube. After a call to Wagner Customer Service I was able to get the hang of it but you need to press straight down on the fill tube (the plastic tube in the paint can) and then I had to apply pressure so that the Smart Flow Roller tilted backward toward me while pressing down so the paint would load in. Once I figured that out, things went smoothly but I just wanted to add that explanation.
The room looked better once it was painted, I went with white walls and shelving because I prefer laundry rooms to be functional and clean looking. Our next step is to add cabinets on the wall above (those will be colored to add some fun), tile the floor and then add decorative touches so I’ll be back when that’s all done, and I promise the room will look a little more interesting by then!
The biggest improvement after the fresh look of the paint is the folding shelf we built. My husband helped me do this, the process was very similar to the one I built in a previous home here. I like to be able to fold clothes right as they come out of the dryer and then pile them into individual baskets for my kids to put away. My preference is to have a front-loading washer so that I can make use of a large workspace on the top.
To build this we picked up a cabinet grade sheet of plywood at Home Depot and had them cut it down to size. My husband fastened some 2x4s to the wall to support the shelf (we used leftover wood from our garage shelf project) and then added some extra 2×4’s underneath on top of the washer and dryer for extra support in the middle. We tacked a piece of painted lattice across the front to finish the front of the shelf off.
I added this inexpensive shelf from Home Depot to go in between to store detergent etc. and to make it easy to access. I made sure to measure the shelf since it is just a bit taller than the washer dryer, our shelf is 42″ off the floor. The small cubbyhole next to the washer will hold this rolling hamper to store dirty clothes (so maybe my kids won’t throw them on the floor?), it’s still en route to us but I’ll show it in the final room reveal.
All in all, this was a very affordable way to create storage and workspace. We worked on it over a 4 or 5 day period because life was going on around us but if you had everything in place this could easily be done in a day, especially with cutting the painting time down to next to nothing thanks to the Smart Flow Roller.
You can purchase a Wagner Smart Flow Roller HERE for your next painting project!
XO,
