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2nd Floor Laundry
I know what you are thinking, what kind of a picture
is that? This is the linen closet in my 2nd floor hallway.
I forgot to take pictures before work began so I went back and took
a snapshot from the video. What do you want for nothin?
Anyway, this project is one of those projects that
was born from another project, namely the Living Room. This
rather large Linen closet is directly above one of the walls in the
Living Room. For anyone who has ever done a demolition, you have to
ask yourself one serious question: "what other work can I do now
that the walls are open?" We decided in this case that we had
an opportunity to convert this closet into a 2nd floor Laundry Room.
The scary part of a second floor laundry room is;
"what if it overflows?" or "what if a hose breaks?" The first floor
ceilings and walls would be trashed. So, safety precautions
must be taken. I started off looking at pans for the
washer/dryer to sit in, but they only had sides that were an inch or
so tall with a small hole in the side for drainage. This was
not going to do the job in the case of a disaster. I decided
to go with an actual floor pan to a shower stall with a full size
drain in the middle of the pan. This meant having to cut open
the ceiling downstairs to install it, but this baby has 4 inch sides
and is designed to get rid of water as fast as you can dish it out.
The machines will sit nicely inside. We also put the gas valve
and single-throw water shutoff on the side of the units where they
can easily be reached in an emergency. Whew! now I can sleep
at night.
Next, I put up the walls, sanded, stained and
finished the floor. We re-finished the woodwork around the
doorway as well. I cut the hole you see to house an oak
recessed ironing board cabinet.
In the mean time, my wife has been quite busy in the
basement. She stained and finished all of the wainscoting as
well as the Ironing board cabinet.
I put up the wallpaper and installed the tin ceiling.
Before doing this, I covered the ceiling with plywood edge to edge.
This gives a good surface to nail the tin panels to. I used a
cordless finishing nailer, which made this job immeasurably easier.
Nailing upside down is no pleasure, plus if you make a mistake with
the hammer, you damage the tin. The tin cornices were a bit
difficult to install because the corners had to be coped. They
came out pretty good considering I had never attempted anything like
this before. Why a tin ceiling in a Laundry Room?
Simple, I am installing a tin ceiling in the Living Room soon and I
needed a place to practice. I would rather make my mistakes in
here. (so I got my learn on where nobody will notice)
The tin panels have to be installed in a certain
order. The panels are designed to slightly overlap. The
first panels to be installed should be where the light source of the
room is. In this case, the ceiling fixture. Then I
worked outward to the edges. The reason for this is when the
light fixture is installed, the light will shine into the seams,
making them hard to see. If the light was to come from the
back of the seams it would cast a small shadow inside the seam,
making them much more obvious. In this picture the light is
being generated from the floor, so the seam is much more visible
than it will be when the actual light fixture is installed.
Because this particular ceiling is not being painted, it was
necessary to put a clear coat on it to protect it from tarnishing.
For this, I used a water-based Polycrylic gloss finish. It has
the consistency of milk when applied, and dries crystal clear.
(and there is almost no smell)
This is the finished ceiling. The hole is for the
dryer exhaust. It will get piped through the attic and out
through one of the soffits on the side of the house.
This photo shows the wainscoting installed along with
the recessed ironing board cabinet. I wish I could take better
pictures, but it is a very confined space.
This photo shows the ironing board pulled down.
As you can see, the board is on a pivot allowing for a little more
room to move around. The smaller board is for ironing sleeves.
Pretty cool eh?
If
you have any questions please e-mail us at: AtLeastImStillFunny@gmail.com
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