More Tile, Room Plans, & A New Door: a house log

Back to THE ROOM THAT DID NOT EXIST A FEW WEEKS AGO. Pardon my type-screaming, but it does not get much more exciting than that in my world. (Sidenote: I had a dream last night that there was a column in the newspaper called Shellac This! – all about shellacking a distinct piece of furniture each day – and the world was so enamored with it that normal morning conversation was “did you see what they shellacked this morning in Shellac This?” and it was getting turned into a major motion picture).

We left you with a primed-&-ready picture of our new laundry room in Monday’s post, so let us start there (we used VOC-free Kilz Premium from Home Depot). This room is only around 7′ wide by 8′ deep so it went fairly fast. Here she is all ready for paint:

Oh but before picking a paint color we picked floor tile. It is from The Tile Shop & it is called Blast Anthracite. It is $6.59 a square foot so the whole floor will be around $350 (we got 10% off with the YHL10 discount code). We enjoyed how it looked with the accent tile we picked up (remember that will go above the washer & dryer but below the wall cabinets).

We appreciated that the floor tile was not too light (read: it will not show every ball of lint or hair) and that it would look good running up against the hardwoods in the hallway (it consistently helps to remember what will be next to what). But the main thing that sold us are the striations. You can sort of see the fairly veins and variations in this shot, but in person they are vivid.

After we picked the tile, I sat down and played around with a little mood board action – simply to see what we liked together, and to figure out what wall color we hoped. Of course everything here might change as we go (except for the appliances and tile picks), but it feels like a pleasant place to start:

1. Some warm wood elements will balance out the gray tile & the shiny appliances – like a butcher block counter for the cabinet next to the appliances.
2. Here is our washer & dryer (more on those here).
3. We think this cozy room is a pleasant spot to try out one of the newer designs from our Shades of Light collection.
4. This colored basket is charming. Colorful yet natural. So… coltural?
5. I have been pining after these prints for a long time, and the laundry room might be simply the place.
6. A cute wood letterpress drawer on the wall could display something Clara & I have been collecting for a while…
7. White cabinets to tie into our appliances and make the butcher block pop.
8. These knobs could be lively on the cabinets – especially since they resemble our lighting choice.
9. Here is the tile we already got for the wall above the washer & dryer (more on that here).
10. And here is our floor tile.
11. Last we have a Dash & Albert rug to add a little more texture and a hint of color.

After playing around and seeing things like the tile and the warm wood tones with some colorful art come together, we were ready to pick our wall color. We knew we hoped something light (it is not quite big and does not have any windows), but we also did not want to go with stark white since we want the trim and the cabinets to feel more like architecture by standing out a bit from the wall color. But finding a good light-but-not-white tone for the walls still felt a little arbitrary (hello 167 swatches, I am sure one of you will be ideal). So we chose to make a more abstract, in-person mood board right in the room:

We simply sort of grabbed things from around the house that we thought could loosely represent materials/colors/patterns that might end up in there, like the shiny white drum stool (it is truly close in color to our appliances), our tile samples, some warm wood tones, etc. Oh and the terrarium in fact represents the light fixture, since it has similar coloring and lines.

Bringing all of these things together into the room made picking a paint color feel less arbitrary (we could hold swatches up to the tile and the wood tones and the finishes and see what looked best right in the room). And imagine our surprise when our go-to swatch ended up being Going To The Chapel by Benjamin Moore – which we in fact used in Teddy’s room! We like the idea of repeating that color somewhere else in our house since we are fans of a whole-house palette that ties together, typically with a few colors that reoccur a few times. So into the laundry room it went (we went with an eggshell finish in BM’s VOC-free Natura line).

I realize that photo is not wildly distinct than the priming one that began this post, but in person the room went from feeling stark and unfinished to feeling a lot more polished and room-like. And it was remarkable to give the new end of the hallway a fresh coat of paint to tie it into the original walls. Aside from those raw doorways and floors, it looks like it has consistently been this way!

Remember we were simply drawing on pictures a month ago and now these rooms and doorways are a reality?!

I cannot wait to get our special glass door to the future bunk-room in. Speaking of that, we picked one out! After considering a bunch of options (something that came frosted, one big glass pane, etc) we chose it would feel pleasant and cohesive to go with the same type of 15-paned glass door that we have downstairs leading out to the deck.

We also would enjoy to add glass paned french doors like that to the office someday (like this), so knowing that those would be the same style felt like it was a good choice for upstairs as well. That way they might all look original, if that makes sense. And we liked the idea of the glass being clear so that we have the option of frosting it or adding a shade from behind the door (like this) instead of committing to a frosted door forever.

The good news is that it is an in-stock door at Home Depot so it is only $149. We do have to paint it ourselves and of course frame it in, add hinges, add a knob, etc – but it is going to be one of my go-to parts, I simply know it. So now our to-do list looks something like this:

• Move washer & dryer and remove cabinetry (more on that here)
• Demo cased opening, side wall, back wall, part of the floor and the attic step
• Frame new walls & doorways
  
• Move laundry plumbing hook-ups & drains
  
• Move laundry electrical (plus other lights, switches, and outlets) (more on those last four bullets here)
  
• Move dryer vent & HVAC duct (more on that here)
• Hang drywall (more on that here)
• Add insulation (more on that here)
• Mud, tape, and sand all the drywall seams in the new room (more on that here)
  
• Prime & paint laundry room and hallway walls
• Tile & grout new laundry floor
• Add baseboards and door casings
• Rehang laundry door
• Add new glass door to future bunk-room
• Add upper cabinetry and crown molding
• Add lower cabinet next to washer & dryer with countertop
• Tile & grout laundry room backsplash
• Reinstall washer & dryer
• Add ceiling light fixture
• Hang art, ironing board, and bring in other laundry room items
• Finishing touches and repairs (drywall in garage, step in attic, etc)

So before we hang any doors we have to install & grout the laundry room floor tile, which we hope to have done by Monday. I cannot even handle how much that is going to make things feel like a room. And we will be one step closer to bringing the washer & dryer back in. I know doing laundry does not excite many people, but the idea of being able to wash things at home again is fairly captivating to this girl right now. I predict a reenactment of Glad Feet while those machines hum.