WE DID IT!!! We finally completed our laundry room renovation, and let’s just say I am one THANKFUL person to have all of those decisions behind us. We ran into a lot of difficult things, from sanding and painting cabinets, to laundry countertop installations being delayed due to Covid, to searching for a faucet that would actually fit this sink…but we did it, and I am so happy with the outcome.

BEFORE: When we purchased the house, this was our only first floor bedroom. We couldn’t really tell how big the room truly was, until the previous owner removed all of his stuff, and until we demoed a massive closet, which you can catch a glimpse of in the lower left hand corner. Removing the closet completely opened up the room.

AFTER: We hired a plumber to move the laundry room plumbing up from the basement (which was conveniently right underneath this room). We placed our cabinets in the area where the old closet was, and we tried to functionally use as much of this space that we could.

Here’s what we used:

Cabinets?

We repurposed old, leftover cabinets from my sister’s kitchen reno. We sanded these babies down, painted them, and mounted some new hardware, and VOILA! They look as good as new.

Also, my sister and her husband decided to donate the rest of their cabinets to Habitat For Humanity Restore Shop. Have you Checked out your local Habitat For Humanity Restore shop? I stop in there every once in awhile. It’s a GREAT place to find sinks, new doorknobs, old doused furniture, etc. Definitely put it on your list, if you haven’t visited before!

To prep the cabinets prior to painting, I used mainly used an orbital sander and a sanding block. Click the link below to check out the orbital sander that I used!

https://rstyle.me/+kCcHfHomSeIP7vaJ5M8uCg

As for the paint we used on the cabinets we chose Sherwin Williams Pro Classic Interior Latex paint (Semi-gloss in the color extra white)

Countertops?

We searched high and low for a countertop remnant at a couple of local countertop shops. We were searching for a remnant, because we were truly hoping to save a few dollars, and we had NO luck after searching for six months. We found several that we loved, but the sizing was not matching up with what we needed.

That’s when I did my research and found out that a blogger that I loved (Liz Marie Glavan), purchased her countertops from Home Depot. We headed over to Home Depot, and I instantly knew that’s where we were going to purchase our countertops. Come to find out?! They run frequent sales, and they were running a 20% off sale on all countertops. Home Depot is really open about sharing when their upcoming sales are, so if you are willing to wait, head in a talk with a representative, and they will give you all of the details! The 20% off sale is the highest sale of the year, so we totally lucked out. Another cool fact? Since we went with Quartz, Home Depot sells the countertops, but it was actually a local countertop shop (that we visited) that installed them and they did a fabulous job. They were in and out of our house within 10 minutes!

As for the style and color of countertops, we went with Rococo Quartz. I originally was going to buy marble, but I did a lot of research and found that there is a lot of upkeep with marble, and it can stain pretty easily. So, I truly loved the color of these countertops, because it was the closest thing to marble that I could find.

Flooring?

Home Depot. Flooring linked below!

https://rstyle.me/+yravJMPcLb3TeB6a6vBk3A

Shelf?

Oh that shelf. We originally had a shelf built at a local wood shop, and we realized we measured it a bit short, so we ended up having to buy another shelf. This actually turned out to be a bit of a blessing because the shelf we originally were going to hang was going to be extremely hard to hang on the wall, free-floating style. So, we ended up calling another local shop, and they built the shelf with two plywood pieces (on top and bottom) and put an actual piece of wood along the face of the shelf, and they constructed it so that it had a french cleat. This allowed us to mount the shelf really easily and it will allow me to put heavy items on the shelf. I’m always switching things up around here, so I wanted to be able to put heavy items on the shelf, if that’s something I decided I wanted to do, later on down the road.

Door?

I was inspired by an Instagram friend to create a laundry door using a $25 vinyl decal from Hobby Lobby, and we were so happy with the result! I found a $20 door on Facebook Marketplace, we sanded this baby down, added some wood filler, added shatterproof glass, and then added on the Laundry decal.

Lockers?

A $50 Facebook Marketplace find! How fun are these? They were covered in stickers and pretty dirty. So, after a good scrub down and half of bottle of GooGone later, we had some lockers that were ready to be sanded down and painted. I used Rustoleum Chalk Paint in the color Linen White. See link below to view the product:

https://rstyle.me/+bvRmYYci6PF3_Q1HyFgw-A

Other Details?

These french soap cubes add such a cute detail to any laundry or bathroom space.

Get them here:

https://rstyle.me/+62kkXofIYRf_R3RqUemFlw

Or here:

https://rstyle.me/+5KhU4n5J5BDv4gYXmrz0rQ

And that’s a wrap! So incredibly happy that we are finally done with the laundry space…which means that we have one room left unfinished on our main floor (hi, kitchen!) but we won’t be getting to that for a few years. Want to know what our next project is? Head to Instagram (@thisoldbrickhouse) to follow along with our daily projects!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today!

Jenna

All of my inspirations lately have been stemming from Pinterest pins that I pinned years ago. I was in desperate need of printing a budget-friendly poster and after calling several stores, I was left feeling very defeated.

I needed two 24 X 36 posters, and I was hoping to do that for $10 or less. The first store quoted me $18/poster, the second store quoted me $35/ poster and the third store quoted me $25 per/poster. I almost settled and called the first store…but then I remembered a pin I had pinned on my Pinterest board, years ago. I remembered that someone had printed large posters at Office Depot/Office Max (now the two stores are one) using engineering print. An engineering printer is usually used to print blueprints.

When I originally called Office Depot, they quoted me nearly $25 per poster…but then I decide to call back. I asked them about printing my poster with the engineering printer. Although they do not typically recommend it, they said they could absolutely print it…and do you want to know how much it was…drumroll please….$3.60 PER POSTER. What?! That blew my mind.

I bought a pdf of this poster on Etsy for $7. I contacted Willow and White studio, and she edited the version of this poster and split the words into two posters. And to top it off, I printed these beauties for a little more than S I X dollars total. Total bill? $14.20 to have these two beauties.

NOTE: The manager at Office Depot did explain that due to the fact the writing on my poster was thin, he was therefore happy to print it. He stated that typically, when the image needs to be filled in, or the writing is thick, printing a poster, using engineering print, may not work too well. Just a little pointer I wanted to share.

So how do you do it?

1. You can bring in your poster to Office Depot on a flash drive.
2. You can call the store, ask for their email, attach the files you want printed, and pick it up when ready (which is what I did).
3. Or, you can do it online. See steps below:

How to print your photos online:

• Go to OfficeDepot.com>Services>Print and Copy

• Click Blueprints

• Upload document>select landscape or portrait>select black & white OR color> select fit to size

1. Optional: add lamination (for an additional 5$)
2. Add to cart>ship to store for free shipping
3. Pick it up in about 2 hours

So how did I choose what I wanted on my poster? Well it was simple for me. This song has always meant so much. Ever since I heard a pastor talk about story behind this song, it stuck with me. I wanted a quote in our home that grounded me. I have quotes all around our house. On our letterboard, on our letter wall, and now in the cozy space of our living room. I look at them all throughout the day. Sometimes they are inspirational. Sometimes they are biblical. Sometimes they are silly. Having something meaningful displayed in your home is important, especially when it comes to making your home feel like… home.

Have you ever heard the story of why the song, “It Is Well”, was written? It’s moving and it reminds me that things in life are hard but we are lucky to have a God who is bigger than all of life’s sorrows.

So, what song means a lot to you? What phrase inspires you? Is there a specific author whose words stick with you? Think about something with meaning, and frame it for you to see, day after day. You will be very grateful you did.

Thank you for stopping by the blog today.

XO

Jenna

Hi friends! I took a break from social media and blogging for a little while, but I have been eager to show you what we have been working on over here. Truth be told, a lot of it hasn’t been very glamorous, but that’s the beauty of buying a fixer upper, right?! It’s not always fun and games.

For the past few weeks, Grant has been pretty much living in our attic and crawl space. We have two attics, and somehow, before we bought this house, a squirrel got into one of the attics and clearly made it’s home inside. So, Grant removed the squirrel, all of its nesting materials, mounds of feces, and all of the insulation that was damaged from the squirrel.

Grant then made his way to our crawl space in the basement. When we bought the house, another squirrel was living in the crawl. We are STILL working on removed thousands….and thousands of walnuts that he had stored down there. Aside from that, We need to insulate the crawls, clean out our basement, and then paint it. So fixing our crawl space was our number one priority, before diving into the rest of the basement project. There was a damaged wall in our crawl space, so Grant spent countless hours digging through the soil to repair the wall. Sounds blissful, right?

Next, comes the laundry room. Laundry plans got put on hold because I was waiting to find the perfect sink. I bought one from Ikea and ended up returning it because I felt like I wanted to go with something that had a bit more character and something that was genuinely vintage. After MONTHS of searching Craigslist, Offer Up, Facebook Marketplace, Estate Sales, and the Antique Mall, we found one. Nearly 3 1/2 hours from our home, we finally found a sink on Facebook Marketplace and decided to make the drive, to pick it up, this past weekend. We landed a vintage, 1930’s Crane sink with its original stand, and I couldn’t be more in love. We paid $300, and in my opinion, it was worth every penny.

Last but not least, we still have been working on tackling the furniture set up in the living room. After getting out carpet installed, we decided to purchase our couch and a few chairs from Ikea because I read and researched hundreds (literally) of couches and I loved that the reviews for the pieces we bought were awesome. I also LOVED that you can rip the covers off, bleach them and/or wash them anytime. We originally went to Ikea to snag the Ektorp sofa for $499. However, when we got to Ikea, we saw that they had an Ektorp 3.5 seater (which is a little bit taller and wider) for $649. We loved it. This couch reminds me of the ones that Pottery Barn carries. People actually think that it is the Pottery Barn couch, when they come over to visit. Due to the space in here and the set up that we realized we wanted, we do need to purchase another couch to put in here, so on our next trip up to Ikea we will get another Ektorp 3.5 seater, and I will share the finished product with you then.

We are heading to pick out a faucet and some countertops for our laundry room today, so can’t wait to share progress of that room with you soon!

XO

Jenna