Laundry Room prettying-up

The Duck is just all studs and insulation and no ceilings and unfinished floors. it is rather depressing at times. So, i decided to pretty up something....anything. the laundry room was the logical choice....it was the smallest room. yes...there is no washer and dryer in there...yet; yes, there is no tile on the floor...yet; yes, there is no baseboards or trim where the ceilings meet the wall....yet; and, yes, the corrugated tin that i plan on using on the walls is not up, either...yet. but, damn it...it looks almost normal.

I painted the ceiling something called Rich Caramel....sort of a yellowy brown. and the walls are a Burst of Orange. you won't be bored doing laundry. baseboard and window trim will be chocolate brown.

I found this cool piece of furniture made from old barn wood in a local antiques store. it's been sitting in the Duck's garage for months. my sis helped me haul it into the house....no easy feat.

Don't know what i will do with the bottom. maybe some square baskets to hold something. or just some quilts under there.

Here is a small quilt that i found .... for a buck at Goodwill.... to hang behind the glass in the top of it.

The top of it has a flower box that i will put greenery in. the piece on the wall above it was on sale for half price at Pottery Barn.

Notice the little candle holders on the sides? i found those cute orange candles at the local Salvation Army in Centralia.

And these two orange glass containers with brass lids came from the same antique store that the barnwood furniture came from. i paid $15 for the 2 of them....pretty expensive for me...but they seemed perfect for the room and i liked them. the larger one has clothespins in it, the other will hold those little bars of soaps that you find in hotels....just need to accumulate more of those or find some in a thrift store. hahahaha

The set of brown glass jars were an auction find....$4.50. of course, i dropped the lid of one of the large ones and broke it....so that one will be a flower vase.  the the green runner on the piece also came from the thrift store....$1.29...someone knitted it.

I have this huge basket on the floor...not sure what it will hold yet. it might even live somewhere else in the house. gotta think on it.  

On the wall above where the washer and dryer are going....i strung some burlap string...clothesline style. i found these 'wallie' laundry items...in a thrift store, naturally. the wallpaper paste doesn't really stick much anymore so i am going to clip them to the string with cute tiny colored clothespins that i found at Hobby Lobby. along with the quilt and the apron, there is a shirt and some socks. will finish hanging those next time. there are 26 pieces and will go all across the wall. the apron is about 5" tall.

This is the wall you see when you walk in the door. i found this old wooden ironing board ...antique store...$7.50....and mounted it on the wall. i will use it as a bulletin board and tack laundry coupons and ads and laundry related items to it. metal Tumbleweeds Hotel sign up in the corner. i plan to add more metal signs as i find them.

My sister spotted a gift bag at the Salvation Army that had these tiny baby clothes on it so i got it and cut them out and put them on the board. more things to come as i find them.

My sis also found the little girl with her umbrella for me at the Salvation Army. I scored the scrub board and found tiny magnets at Hobby Lobby that i will put on the corrugated part to hold laundry notes. the switch plate cover was found online. and the tiny wooden laundry basket was a thrift store find, also. there is a thrift store theme here, isn't there?  i love thrift stores. did you notice the electric box to the right of the washboard? i painted it, too....hoping it will blend in. i guess i could have hung a picture over it....might still do that.

The lace curtain was found at Salvation Army...the plaid curtain parts on the edges came from Walmart. i scored the little red ladder at a thrift store closing up and got it for $2. then found the little hankies to hang on it at Salvation Army for 19 cents each....need 1 more. the the white piece hanging over the doorway was a Salvation Army find also...$1.99. might put some paint on it one day.

  So, i can now come into the laundry room and see some pretty when i get tired of looking at insulation walls and no ceilings. LOL   Of course, eventually the laundry room will have to be cleaned out again to put in the permanent wall covering and beadboard on the bottom of the walls. and trim around walls and windows. but for now, a gallon of paint made some of my world happy.   Hopefully i will get back to the Duck in a few weeks and get more insulation hung.....   Later

Insulation hanging at the Duck

I have just come back from 5 days at the Duck...hanging insulation. 10 rolls of insulation...416 feet of insulation. up and down the ladder hundreds of times. and whacked the top of my head on the ceiling joist in the kithcen...ouch!

I like the Johns Manville stuff better....it comes in a whole roll and i can cut off a 10' section to put up in one piece. i had 6 rolls of that.

Then i had 4 rolls of the pink panther stuff...that comes precut...into 8 foot sections. so there will be a lot of cut and paste to finish up the bottom 2 feet.  We won't talk about the sections that are too narrow or too wide for the 15" wide insulation. so, next trip will be a LOT of cutting and pasting to fit those sections....days worth.

And i had to take 1 piece down and move it. i can't hang insulation where the pocket doors go into the wall....i almost screwed up there. good thing i noticed after only hanging one piece.

How do you like my brown leather rocker that i scored at auction? it is very comfy. and there is a regular chair to match. they are pretty heavy. i am going to take the bottoms off and add more padding to the seats. they will live in the living room.

This is my kitchen table and chairs that i scored at auction for $41. has tiles on the top. in pretty good shape. rather heavy. i had to take the legs off to get the table into the house. my doorways were too narrow. will probably paint it later.

And i found this tablecloth at the Salvation Army thrift store for 1.49. someone embroidered that so beautifully that i had to bring it home. it's like card table size so i put it on the table crossways.  and the jar with the blue heart that is on the table is a thrift store find, also.  this might have to be called the Thrift Store Duck. hahahaha

After all that insulation hanging...i HAD to pretty something up....anything....so i painted the laundry room and hung stuff up in there. SOME PART of that house had to look more normal. i'll show you what i did in the next posting...

Later

Painting at the Duck

I spent a couple of days at the Duck...days with a paint brush in my hand. i got a second coat around the front door and then decided the rest of that 'brick' needed to be brown also.

The 2 free quarts of brown did around the door and the corner. then i had to go buy a gallon of paint.

This is the south side

And here is the north side. ignore that rotting window sill. LOL  i think i better replace that this year instead of next. when you look at the top of that corner it is a darker brown than the bottom. when he mixed my paint.....i wound up with a different color....even though the name of the color was the same.  so around the door and the side of that top corner piece is darker than the rest. i didn't have enough paint to go over it again....i used all i had. so i will live with it for now....i am thinking it is ok .... if not....then next spring might be more painting.

I spray painted the inside of this washtub. i have plans for it

Then i spray painted this light fixture. the light fixture will go inside the washtub and it will all hang in the laundry room ceiling. there are glass globes for the light.

I am hoping when i go back to the Duck next month that it will be cool enough to bring my hubby along so he can hang the light for me and do a couple other projects that i have in mind for him.

Progress is slow right now but i am waiting to get on the schedule for window installing and drywall. hopefully still this year.

Once i get some drywall....then some fun painting can begin. but i guess that will be next year.

My 20 hours labor at the Duck

My days start early at the Duck. i usually wake up with the sun and go and get started before it gets too hot. i had some yard work on my list for this trip so i tackled that early. about 8 o'clock i went and picked up Jim from the beast so he could start his list. i trimmed these bushes back to the fence so the yard guy could get his mower closer to the fence. and there was a large pile of trash there that i picked up also. filled 6 trash bags. looks much better. the little yappy dog next door was not happy with me. hahahahaha

And i picked up the last of the plaster that i had dumped in this nook. i cart it home and dump it in a hole that i am filling at the farm.

I put some brown paint on the trim around the back door. makes the siding look even dirtier.

And painted the trim on the window on this back porch, too.

Got some brown paint on the trim around the front door. i had to be brave and get the ladder out to do the very top. i don't like that because the ladder has to rest on the steps and i am a chicken.

I came back the next day and didn't like the white trim around the door when i drove up...so i painted it all brown...i like it better. once the new windows get in and the siding spruced up...it will be better yet. While i was painting out there....wasps kept flying into a hole under the concrete ledge on the right side step. i was keeping my eye on them. there is some Raid in their future if they are still there the next time. i plan on buiding a little porch there from about the end of the mailbox to the corner of the house. maybe about 6' out. then put wooden steps and a railing. this is too awkward from the steps right into the inside...there is a high step. and that ugly mailbox and numbers are going, too.

I also painted the ledge under the windows and around the house. i intended to step on the top of the flower bed there to paint it....but it was wobbly. so i got the bright idea to paint it from inside. i hung out the windows and painted as far as i could stretch. then took a milk crate outside to do the very corner and stood on the steps to do the part by the door. i will go around the house on the other side, too.....maybe next time.  you know....now that i look at the pictures....i think i will paint all that gray concrete stuff dark brown, too. the siding will be painted a light tan/sand color. then i'll paint the porch to match the siding. what do you think?

This is the ceiling on the front entry...that used to be a porch that the former owner enclosed. those are staples up there...with bits of ceiling tiles attached. i tackled that early one morning, too.

Now it just needs a bit of scraping and caulk and is ready to paint.

I also cleaned up around the ceiling in the bedroom. i had left nails in the rafters and a few slats at the top....so i took care of those.  and pulled nails around the perimeter of the rooms once again. when i cleaned all the debris out from between the studs i found more nails to pull. it never seems to end.

And our girl, SuzyQ, went with us also. she really wasn't happy about it though. sometimes she came to the Duck with us and sometimes she stayed at the beast with my sister. i think she liked staying at the beast better....there was a couch and bed to lay on. LOL   the Duck was just dusty. although we brought her quilt for her to lay on...she just followed us around and laid down wherever we were. she got a shower when we got home. and she is 8 years old today...so happy birthday Suzy. she is getting gray hair on her chin....we probably stress her out. LOL

I ordered 7 new windows on this trip, so in a couple weeks i will have to go down and take delivery of those. and i have started my new list of things to do...a lot of it is painting.

And i am working on figuring out how much drywall i will need and insulation. that might be work for september or october....when it gets cooler.

Maybe next time there will be pretty pictures to see.....and i will show you

Later

Jim's 20 hours of labor at the Duck

Jim went with me to the Duck this time ..... he said he needed a road trip.  hahahahahaha    i might have cured him of that. he came home after 2 1/2 days labor saying his calves were screaming at him from going up and down the ladder and he was tired.

But he got all but one thing done on the to-do list that i had.....but he also did a few more things that weren't on the list. i got my money's worth. and for the record....i paid him with food...hahaha...Long John Silvers, McDonalds, KFC. cheap labor

First he tackled the wall in the back room. someone used 2x6s to close it up instead of 2x4s...so i had him take out the 2x6s and replace them with 2x4s. it was about a 10'x5' area. there were 4 2x6s holding it up but he put 6 2x4s in their place....to match the studs above and below them. i had to use some old 2x4s that were pulled from other places in the house because this was done many years ago and the widths of studs back then were actually 3 1/2" wide....instead of the 3 3/8 that they are now.

This is from the inside....plywood back in place...ready for insulation. see how nicely those studs match up at the bottom.

This is the doorway between the dining room and living room. i had him remove the middle piece of wood so i could reinstall pocket doors that i found.

This door never closed properly...plus the old door jamb was messed up in the demolition process. so Jim took out the old piece and brought it home so he could create a new jamb to pop back in there. i didn't have any old pieces that were the same so he has to create one. old lumber once again.

There were some slats and plaster still left up in this corner of the kitchen....but he cleared them out. reciprocating saw to the rescue.

And this little corner of the hall had some slat boards stuck in the corner that i couldn't get out and he cleared that out, too.

Then he tackled the breaker box. there was some tightening of wires to do....had to go and get a proper sized allen wrench to accomplish that. good thing the home center store is just down the road....we made about 3 trips a day there.....getting parts or pieces that we needed.

He got the plywood back on the wall...

And got the cover on the breaker box. now the laundry room is ready for some pretty..... paint, beadboard, niceties. i plan on getting a fancy light switch cover, too.

Jim also tackled jobs that i didn't get pictures of....don't know why not. sometimes i forgot the camera was there and sometimes he just worked too fast for me to keep up with him. things i don't have pics of....

...he took out the old window in the studio that faced the front porch. a new window has been ordered
...he covered holes between the studs in the floor where you could see into the basement. i know this probably didn't matter since the walls would cover it....but i didn't like the idea of spaces for creatures to come up into the walls from the basement. i felt better about it.
...he removed a sheet of plywood under the windows on the back porch. i had started it and just couldn't get the long nails to give it up...he made it look easy.
...he cut a couple boards off even at the corner of the garage. the previous owner had just attached the plywood fence to the back of the garage. but i couldn't take the whole piece off or it would expose the insulation in the garage...so i had Jim cut it off evenly. i'll deal with that later.

And then...as if that wasn't enough....he installed 7 lights. This one is just outside the back door...on the enclosed back porch. it came from a yard sale for a buck.

This one is outside the back porch...it was bought new.

This was the same light that was already there....in the front entry foyer. needs a bit of paint still. and a little ceiling repair.

This is outside the front door. bought new, also. i think it got installed a bit high and looks a little funny to me....but that is where the hole was cut and wires run by the electrician...so we just went with it. it might just look weird to me because the house is higher there because of the steps. if it were at ground level it might look ok. or maybe it needs to be larger...but for now....it will do. i'll get used to it.

This is the enclosed front porch/entry. i never know what to call this 'room/space'. i found this light at the Salvation Army for $5. he was sort of mumbling about the sale finds because all the parts might not be included and had to be figured out how to install....more trips to the home center store. hahahaha

But look....isn't it lovely. with a coat of paint on that ceiling to match the color on the light....it will be terrific. it's about 18" long.

Another pieced together light from parts i found at the Duck...going outside the door from the garage to inside the house. i plan on parking my truck on the end of the garage and that will be my main entry into the house. .... it goes into the kitchen.

And this one ... another yard sale find....is above the kitchen door steps from the garage. now i will have lights everywhere....once i turn the electric on, that is. that is on the agenda for the next trip. .... call the electric company and have them re-install my meter and turn on the juice. it will be great to plug something in anywhere instead of hauling around an extension cord from the garage. i'll feel uptown. LOL



Although i guess i worked Jim to death....he did an awesome job on all these jobs. things i would have had to pay someone to do. can't beat husband labor. LOL

Next i will show you what i accomplished while all this was going on.

Later