Beach House Laundry Makeover- Pt. 1

Even though we’re at the beach, we still need to do laundry. So this weekend we did a laundry room makeover at our beach house in Florence.

Laundry is behind this door…

Aaaand, here it is – this is the after-before picture. The actual before picture would have shown horrible stinky 1960’s tile and “kustom kabinets”. WOULD HAVE, but we didn’t take one before we scraped the tile bashed the cabinets off the walls.

Horrible cabinets were on the left over laundry area…

Painted with odor blocking primer- including the floor

Large ugly cabinet was to the left of the door. We bashed it off with a sledge hammer. It was most satisfying.

The laundry room had either been abused by pets, or possibly uninvited pets (ie: rodents, evidence of which I found in various areas) and it was super smelly. So, a few weeks ago,  after the tiles were popped up (we used a scraper but they gave us no resistance) we coated the entire room in odor and stain blocking primer- specifically Zinsser B-I-N which is a shellac-based primer. This primer requires either denatured alcohol or ammonia for clean up, so I decided to limit my paint brush use and sacrificed a paint roller (rather than clean it with ammonia.) Once the primer dried the smell was gone. Yay!

So that brings us to THIS weekend which was latex paint and new floors. I decided to spray the room with my paint sprayer, so first we mask.

And we prepare our person for paint spraying.

Ready for paint spraying and also uranium handling.

Yes. This is a haz-mat suit. Actually, it’s just a cover-all I bought at Home Depot, but it works great for spraying or any painting. The first time I used the paint sprayer I just wore my “paint clothes” and a baseball hat and my regular prescription glasses. But I soon realized that I couldn’t breath and my entire body was covered in light blue mist. So I sprung for the goggles (which will fit over my glasses) and the respirator mask which filters out paint particles. It’s super uncomfortable, but my eyes and lungs are worth it. SO ARE YOURS.

Here we are post paint:

I was able to spray about 70% of the room then my sprayer malfunctioned. Which is annoying because I had to roll the remaining wall AND I had plans to write a paint sprayer review (which would just be angry right now). At any rate, paint is completed, color is Urban Raincoat, Behr Ultra.

Paint is dry the next day and we start laying the floor. We have Allure vinyl planks in Country Pine. This is a floating floor that connects with sticky pads rather than tongue and groove.

We start at one corner and use paint sticks for spacers since we did not think about buying actual spacers.

Note the 1950’s fold-up yard stick (a gem found in laundry room cabinets before they were destroyed) that we used for a straight edge.

The fact that this is a floating floor is important because the subfloor is slightly uneven.

When we get the end of the first row, we trim the plank the fit. Then the remaining piece of plank starts the next row. This ensures that the planks will be staggered more or less randomly, as opposed to a grid. They are easily trimmed with a razor and straight edge. If you don’t have a straight edge (or say, forgot to bring one from your suburban garage that’s just swollen with tools) you could simply use the 1950’s fold-up yard stick that we found hiding in the skanky old cabinets (pictured above).

Floor is down!

 

Allure Vinyl Plank in County Pine – very wood-like.

Final touch is MDF 1″ x 3″ trim molding.

At this point, my husband retires to the couch and I begin the Ikea shelving project. We’re installing the Algot series of shelving, consisting of permanently affixed wall rails and movable shelves and other accessories.

Ikea Algot with 15″ shelves and a drying rack

So we’re done until next time when the washer and dryer arrive and we install the remaining shelving unit. Check back in a few weeks for an update!!