Nearing the deadline

Man, for just being a closet for laundry, this little area sure is requiring a lot of time and blog space!

This morning I sanded the drywall that Scott touched up last night as well as the ceiling. Have I mentioned before that I really dislike sanding drywall? Because I do dislike it, a lot. Normally I wouldn't even touch the ceiling as anything over my head is out of my domain, but it was looking pretty good so I thought I'd give it a go and see if we were at the point of calling it done. Covered in drywall dust head to toe, I felt like the stay-puff marshmallow man.

Before we can paint the ceiling, we needed to try to match the knockdown texture. We did all the drywall when we built the house nine years ago, and in some places it looks great. In others you can observe our amateur status. We weren't pros at drywall but we were kind of forced to take that task on to get our budget back on track after the contractor (we shall call him Nimrod) 'forgot' to include the cost of trusses in his bid. Eliminating the labor expense on drywall was a big step toward recovering our budget. Not being pros, however, we weren't doing anything fancy on the ceilings. I know that the popcorn look would have been the most forgiving but it is also something people seem to loathe with a passion so we compromised with a knock down texture that would mask imperfections.

To blend the extended ceiling into the old, we were not about to go through the mess and expense of renting a professional sprayer. For such a small area we bought a can of spray-on ceiling texture and hoped it would work ok. Scott came home at lunch today and put the texture up while my primer dried so I could get two coats of paint on the walls today.

ceiling texture spray

He did a test spray on a piece of scrap drywall just to get a feel for the spray pattern. It was easy enough, just twist the nozzle, spray to desired thickness, let rest for a few minutes and use a 6-8" drywall knife to knock it down. After applying it we both felt there were a few areas that could use a little heavier texture so he touched up those spots. Within half an hour he was completely done with a 1' x 5' section. It isn't an exact match but close enough, especially for the laundry closet.Then my fun began.

I don't mind painting, but boring white primer and white semi-gloss on all the trim is getting old. White, white, give me color! I was dying to see if I liked the color I picked on the walls because if I didn't like it today was my one and only chance to change it. Once the washer and dryer are set in the space on their pedestal, there will be no chance at a do-over.

I had a hard time settling on a color. I've been checking out a lot of trends on Pinterest.com and I've been seeing a lot of beach glass greens and blues. I like those colors, and the temptation was definitely there to make this little laundry closet light and airy. But I decided to push out of my comfort zone a little and be bold. I'm never disappointed when I choose a rich color and yet I usually have to talk myself into it. I ended up settling on a color called "Big Cypress" by Pittsburgh Paints. It is sort of a cinnamon copper color.

First things first, I decided to tape off a 4 inch section at the front of the walls. This is so that when the white bi-fold doors are closed on the closet you won't be able to see the cinnamon color around the edges. Next I painted up around the new light fixture. I found this one at Lowe's for $20. I really like it because the halogen lights are very bright and the track lights can be positioned to focus the light in front of the machines where I will be pre-treating spots in the laundry.

lights off

lights on

Next I painted all the walls. I am really liking the color and I think it will look great with the champagne colored appliances and black pedestal.

Still need to apply one more coat and paint the ceilings, put the face plates on the utility boxes, mop the floor and finish the pedestal before tomorrow afternoon. Tonight is football homecoming, but it is freezing cold so I'm bowing out on the festivities to get the painting done. Then later tonight Scott can thaw out under the lights after taking our kids to the game and finish everything else. Tomorrow both girls have activities so we won't have a chance to do any last minute details, it all needs to be done tonight. Getting closer though!