It's a scary mess down there.
Week 2 of our #OneRoomChallenge bath and laundry room clean up has been all about demo. I love tearing down walls and ceilings. Peeling it back. Like the layers of an onion. Wading through dust and debris. Aside from the promise of a clean slate, you never know what you may find. Sometimes it's a delight like when we found a child's shoe and hat from the 1800s carefully placed in the wall cavity in #MillarHouse. And, sometimes, it's not.
This time, in the season of the pumpkin, we found some tricks not treats waiting behind the tile walls we liberated in our basement. I mean basements can be sketchy to begin with, but Halloween came early my friend. No, there weren't bats (we had that issue in another house, seriously).
Our horror was fluff. Dryer fluff. Not just a little. I'm talking, a massive amount enough to fill a pillow. The metal tube dryer vent had somehow come apart in the enclosed bulkhead and the cavity was filled to the brim with flametasic fluff. That, combined with the near-by octopus-looking electrical junction, could have turned into a whole lot of scary.
A good lesson learned. One I want to share with you. Especially if you are inheriting a home with work behind the walls you can't see. Demo is not only the optimistic beginning of a new project, it can also keep you safe.
In its eighteenth season, the One Room Challenge™, takes place in April and October. Each round, twenty design influencers take the challenge as Featured Designers. Every Wednesday, the designers document their process over six weekly posts. Better Homes and Gardens is the official media sponsor.
In addition to following along, everyone with a blog or Instagram account, is welcome to join the fun as a Guest Participant by linking their own room transformations up each Thursday, flooding the internet and social media with interior design inspiration, ideas, and encouragement.
This is our second One Room Challenge as a Guest Participant, but it's the first inside project we are tackling in our new home. See our first ORC - the makeover of our flower studio and garden. We are #LovingLeuty.
Progress Report
Low, overbearing ceiling, gone. Flimsy walls hiding all kind of terrible, gone. Ugly floor tiles, gone.
It's a bit like Christmas morning - so exciting to see what's behind the wrapping. Two happy surprises. Cement floor in really good condition (mmm, is polished cement in our future?) and high rafters that make us feel like the sky has opened up (if you guessed that I'm thinking we keep them open and spray them white, you'd be oh so correct).
Week 1 Week 2
Week 1 Week 2
Landing On A Layout
With all the gunk gone, like a fresh face waiting for makeup, you can really see the potential of the room. It's time to finalize the plan for placement of key elements that are going to make this space tick - like the washer and dryer, shower, sink, toilet and storage.
The room was originally divided into two zones in a galley layout - a laundry area along one wall and a bath area along the opposite wall. This is a tried-and-true template and it mostly works. With a few strategic adjustments, we are going to make some improvements to the flow so we can maximize the functionality while keeping a keen eye on our decorating aspirations for the space.
Here's the laundry zone. The only tweak we're making to the original footprint is to move the washer and dryer beside each other and to move the sink to the far end. This creates a longer counter surface on top for folding and a separate sink area that serves for both the washing of things and people. We opted not to go with a stacker washer and dryer as the ceiling is not super high and so we could maximize counter space and put a bank of upper cabinets for storage. The sink area will have pull-out drawers, mostly to hold typical bath-related stuff.
In the bathroom area, we have the toilet tucked beside the wall, a storage closet in between and built-in shower stall. The shower stall is being custom made and will be about 42 inches wide and 40 inches deep with a glass door. The storage closet will be as deep and high as the shower and is about 24 inches wide (lots of room for toilet paper stockpiling).
Up Next
We're motoring along and making great progress. With a clean slate and layout plan in place, we can start to select the decor direction and elements that will bring the room to life. Stay tuned for some serious design decisions next week.
Need More Inspiration?
If you missed it, you can catch up on our progress:
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