Laundry Room Project is Done!!

Saturday night, at approximately 6:25PM, after working diligently for nearly 10 hours, I dubbed the Laundry Room Project “done” — at least for now!!

You may wonder why I decided to do this particular project that requires so much effort in my laundry room, a place where one does not spend a lot of time.  It’s simple – in order to go to the garage for any number of supplies or to leave the house in my car, I have to pass through this room, and vice-versa.  I also spend a limited amount of time in this room doing laundry so I wanted to make it a more cheerful place.

Before I reveal the project in words and pictures, here are two views of the room in question…

This is the view from the house…

…and this is the view from the garage.  As you can see, the drop cloth is in place and the walls have been taped off.  Until I show the final picture I’m just going to show you the progress as seen from the house.

What I did on this big blank wall was inspired by a picture I had seen in a magazine 20 or so years ago, but it was done in a hallway.  Yes, that’s right, this little project of mine has been spinning around in my head for more than 20 years!  My house in MA was so small that I didn’t have any wall space upon which to play, so it had to wait until I moved into this house in CA, and then it had to wait until the more necessary projects were accomplished.

Though at times I wished I had kept the picture, now I’m very pleased that I didn’t.  If I had the picture I would be trying to duplicate it perfectly.  Without it my imagination was set free and nothing I did would be wrong.

Now, here are the supplies for the first round…

And here’s the part A of the first stage…

I decided that I did not like the white wall at all, it looked way too out-of-place, so I added blue to that wall that borders the garage and the one that borders the house…

Ahh…so much better!

As I moved on to part B panic set in.  How do I get the picture in my head to come out through my hands?  I started timidly at first but once I got into the swing of things my hand kept time with the songs blaring forth from my iPod and before I knew it, the wall was starting to take shape!

The next stage involved lots of color so my paint cans exploded to include many smaller containers of colors mixed from the cans…

After 4 nights of painting, part C was done and the wall really looked like something…

You may have noticed that the tall green stem is gone (there were actually two of them).  Sunflowers were going to top these stems but I hated how they looked so with a magic sweep of blue paint they became just a memory!  As for the flowers in the picture, don’t take too much time trying to figure out what they are.  Though some are inspired by “real” flowers, many more bloomed from my imagination.

Now on to the supplies for the second and final part of the project…

and…

What I made with all these supplies was a picket fence!  There are 3 very good reasons why I didn’t just buy a pre-made fence.  First, the fence sections are sold in 8′ lengths and I needed 8’9″!  Second, I needed to make sure the pickets were spaced correctly in order to not be hit by the doorknobs when the doors opened (both doors open into the laundry room).  Third, the pre-made fences were 42″ tall and I didn’t want fencing that tall.

My garage floor was a huge help in the fence assembly.  You might have noticed the perpendicular lines in the above photo – they were my “jig” of sorts.  The lower horizontal fence bar went along one line and the pickets were lined up one at a time along the other line.  A measuring tape was stuck into the groove so that I could make sure all pickets started 2-1/2′ below the lower bar.

After 3 hours the fence was made and the first layer of sealer was drying…

My recycling (r) and trash (l) barrels are awesome saw horses don’t you think?

All components were done, including 3 parts of one item that I didn’t photograph but that you’ll see right now.

Voila – may I present my most AWESOME laundry room as seen from the house…

…and the garage (pardon the washed out blue color)?

Here’s what one section looks like head-on…

When I painted all the greenery and flowers I purposely did so before making the fence.  I wanted the pickets to land where ever they landed, I didn’t want to paint flowers around the picket locations.  Much more natural that way I think.  The same held true for the birdhouse.  I didn’t know where it was going to be placed until after the fence was attached.

One interesting tidbit of information for you.  The only thing I drew on the wall was the dividing line between the blue and the green base coats way back in the beginning.  Everything else was done freehand, or should I say, freebrush!

In the first line of this post I mentioned that the project was done for now.  Have you figured out why it’s not completely done?  It’s all that blue sky – I need to do something with that.  My mind was so busy with the bottom that it never dawned on me how blank the top would be!

I will definitely lighten the blue paint with some white and make wispy-ish clouds near the ceiling, and I’m thinking about adding some birds and/or butterflies.  I definitely want to add some bees and ladybugs, maybe even a snail, but these would be added to the plants themselves, not the sky.

I’ll live with it for a few months and see what visions pop into my head, then I’ll get the paint brushed and paint back out in order to fully complete the wall.

But for now, I’m calling this project done.

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