Cabinets In The Laundry Room

We had some really yucky shelves in the laundry room and when figuring out what to do with the floor, I realized that it was the right time to get some stock cabinets installed. It made sense to enclose the laundry stuff and also to get them in before the washer and dryer were delivered.

Here is a shot of what the shelves looked like with all our stuff piled on them. Kind of a mess I am sure you will agree. If you read my post about the removal of the shelves and the work it created in the attic and roof, you will know why I put this one off for a while.

So first thing was to remove the gigantic screws that were holding the brackets in. This of course caused the issues with the dryer vent, but wasn't going to stop me.

Once the shelves were out, this is what the wall looked like.

Bald wall with washer faucets and GFCI

New cabinets on floor

After I leveled and installed ledger bar

With cousin help, cabinets mounted on wall

After I put the doors back on

And this is the final look, which is so much better than those open shelves. They are just basic stock shelves meant for a kitchen but they do the job and will hold up longer than the particle board options the "storage section" had as an alternative.

Right now, these cupboards are filled to the brim with odds and ends from not only the laundry room but all over the house while we get the bamboo floors installed, but that is another project for another post!

Attic Projects At The Bamboo Lagoon

There have been a couple of little projects involving the attic in this house on the list for some time. They weren't super intensive projects or anything but just something that needed to be done that hadn't been done.

So in the process of working on another bigger project yesterday, I kind of got forced to deal with one of them and since I was already dealing with one, it made sense to just knockout the other ones.

Dryer Vent Project

The dryer vent in this house goes up and out thru the attic. It has to be this way because of the way that the laundry room and our master bath nest up against each other. I found that the vent wasn't connected to the vent in the roof of the house so for a period of time, renters were venting into the attic space rather than out through the roof vent.

I had to put the vent piece up as high as it could go and originally, I figured I would get in the attic and just fix it there, but the space was way too tight so I ended up getting on the roof and fixing it from there.

Attic view where vent wasn't going through roof of house

Covered attic vent

Before screen and cleanout of lint

 I also cleaned the roof vent out of built up lint and put a new screen on it that can be removed and cleaned periodically since it is only clamped down.

With new bracket attached to keep it from falling into attic

With new screening and clamp attached

Electric Box Cover Project

The lighting in the laundry room used to be a standard overhead light, and at some point in time was changed over to be a florescent tube lighting fixture. When the electric box that previously fed the original light was covered, it was done so poorly. It didn't completely cover the hole in the drywall and it was crooked.

I had purchased a new paintable cover for it, but just hadn't gotten to it because I had to access the attic to push the electric box down flush with the drywall to attach it. Since I was already doing things in the attic, it seems logical to knock this small one out.

Hole and electric box in laundry room ceiling

The cover I bought for it

In place and it can be painted to match when ceiling is painted soon

Attic Access Cover Insulation

The piece of drywall that covers the access to the attic apparently had two bath towels stapled to it to provide insulation. Definitely not adequate. We had some left over insulation from the wall repair (and even though it isn't the same R factor you would use in an attic) and figured it would be a good option. I cut the piece to fit and then stapled it to the attic side of the drywall.

Drywall piece with no insulation

Extra piece of insulation

Finished project, better than it was for sure!

Miscellaneous Attic Checkups

As well as these three little projects, I also had plans to check the insulation in the attic to see if it was adequate (and it was), check the exhaust vents to see if they vented outside (and they do), and check if putting in a pulldown ladder and plywood for storage up there was feasible (and it really isn't). So all in all, even though I didn't get a lot of the other project done, at least that attic stuff is off the list!!

New Vanity Light

One more step in the brass removal project was to get rid of the vanity in our master bath. Its only redeeming quality was that it wasn't ALL brass, but only partially brass...lol.

Old half brass vanity

One coat of Kilz

I took the old vanity light out pretty easily, but found under it that the horrible kelly green paint that the renters used in that bathroom was going to show when the new vanity was up due to the fact that the vanity wasn't removed when the room was repainted.

Last coat of Kilz

Two coats of the new color

So I had to apply two coats of Kilz to cover up the green and then had to paint that portion of the wall the new color that the bathroom will eventually be. It took two coats and a few touch ups but the portion above the mirror is now "new".

New light without the globe attached

With the globes and the light on

Once the painting was done, the install of the new vanity was pretty easy. Definitely like the new look over the old.

Front Porch Light Replacement

Okay, I bought all four porch lights at the same time, but due to weather and time constraints they weren't installed at the same time. I was able to work on two of them first because they are on the back of the house and in the shade for a large portion of the day.

Old front porch light (nice light in good condition just not the right style)

Old ugly brassy original light next to garage door

So this afternoon, in spite of the heat, I decided it was time to get the front porch ones done. The front door light had a pancake electric box on but also this built up ornamental piece that will eventually need to be removed to provide a more flush mounting so that weather won't get in. I need to run a bead of clear caulk over all four lights now, even though only the front door one seems that it would get any weather on it.

New porch light on front porch

New porch light next to garage door

Both installed pretty quickly and seem to be working okay. Currently they have incandescent bulbs in them since they are both motion sensored dimming lights, but I am going to hit a DIY store tomorrow and see if I can get dimmable LED lights for them so they can be left on all the time. They have light sensors so they only turn on at night.

So glad to have this project off the list!!

Back Porch Light Replacement

So this house has 4 porch lights, and each one is different. Two of them were the brassy 80's style. We have wanted to replace them since we bought this house.

Last week, I finally got the replacements purchased. I managed to get the two on our back porch done in the morning on one of my days off, since it was shady on that side of the house. We have had very hot weather here for a couple of weeks now so any outdoor improvements have to be done in the shade or during the cooler times of day.

This was the one near our back slider

This was the one next to the back door

The actual change out wasn't that difficult. Both of these did not have electrical boxes for them, so that is something that probably needs to be dealt with at some point. I mostly just wanted to get them installed. Neither one is really exposed to weather directly so I am not too worried, but putting them into junction boxes is something that needs to be done eventually.

These are the two new back ones after installation. I was trying to find something with a simple Asian look to them...mostly, I end up looking at Mission and Craftsman style stuff to get the simple lines. The front ones will be a bit different because those need to be bigger fixtures and the ones they had to match these ones were gigantic so I went with a different style in a motion light.

New one next to back slider

New one next to back door

I think they look pretty cool and are definitely better than what we had up there. The old fixtures will go to the ReStore since they are still usable. Nice to see more brass leaving this house!