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Home » Fix and Flip Houses » Third House » Laundry Room Reno With Birch Tree Shelves

Third House

Laundry Room Reno With Birch Tree Shelves

bathroom before and after

We started the laundry room renovation in October 2014 and it took about three months to complete. It doesn’t look like it needed much work, but the vanity had a lot of water damage around the bottom so we knew we had to replace that. And then we replaced the almond coloured toilet to match the sink. We stacked the washer and dryer and made custom shelves out of birch trees and scrap wood we had lying around. We also replaced the light and the door, and painted the walls and trim. Here are the before pictures.

laundry room makeover

laundry room makeoverlaundry room before and after

This is the laundry nook. We removed the cabinets and put them in the garage for extra storage. We decided to stack the washer and dryer because the doors opened away from each other and it was very awkward trying to get the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Also, the door to the bathroom always got in the way of the washer door, and it just didn’t work well.

laundry room makeoverlaundry room before and after

I started this project on a bit of a whim. I was home alone with two kids while the oldest was at school, and I was a little bored. Tony came home that day to see a toilet on the front lawn.

bathroom makeover

Before putting all the fixtures back in the bathroom, I painted all the trim white with Benjamin Moore Simply White. I painted the walls using a mix of leftover paints I had – it turned out to be a light greige.

We stacked the washer and dryer and wanted to add a shelving unit beside them so there was lots of storage space. We also wanted to do something unique without spending too much money. So I went to our land and cut down a small birch tree for the front supports. Tony found some wood in the garage that we could use for the shelves. Then he did a burnt wood finish on the shelves using a blowtorch, and sealed it with a couple coats of polyurethane. I never took pictures while he was doing this, but it was pretty cool. And Tony never protested when I asked him to do it for me.

To build the shelving unit, we attached a brace to the wall and screwed it into studs. This piece holds up the back of the shelf. The front of each shelf is held up by a piece of the birch tree. You can see the finish that the blowtorch gives to the wood – it really brings out the wood grain and gives more contrast than staining would.

birch branch shelves

There’s a ton of storage on these shelves. We designed it so there was room for at least two laundry baskets, because there’s always a steady flow of laundry through this room.

birch branch shelves

The light is from Lowes and it cost about $100. I love the sparkle it brings to this room.

bathroom makeover

The vanity, mirror and faucet are from Home Depot. The vanity is the Glacier Bay Ashland 36 inch vanity. I think the amount of storage in this vanity is perfect for a half bath, and I like that there’s room for baskets underneath. The backsplash tile is also from Home Depot. We bought the mosaic tile as a black Friday sale, and somehow we didn’t end up with quite enough. So we got the turquoise tile and added a stripe of that in with the other tile. It was pretty finicky working with those little tiles in this pattern, but we’re happy with how it turned out.

wood bathroom vanity

I got this canvas print from Winners. The colours were perfect for the room, and I thought the trees tied in nicely with the shelves. However, it used to be a rectangle that was too big for the space. So I peeled the canvas back, cut the wood frame with a chopsaw, glued and clamped it back together, and stretched the canvas back over the smaller square frame.

bathroom makeover

In total we spent less than $1000 for the whole laundry room renovation. I think that’s not too bad for a total renovation.

bathroom before and afterbathroom makeover with birch branch shelves

 

 


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  1. The To-Do List | The Vanderveen House says:
    March 16, 2016 at 9:19 am

    […] Laundry room […]

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  2. Moving Day! | The Vanderveen House says:
    August 20, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    […] laundry room was sort of my first big renovation that I started on my own. I was on maternity leave and was […]

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  3. Completed To-Do List For Our Third House • The Vanderveen House says:
    May 4, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    […] Laundry room […]

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  4. The To-Do List for Our Third House • The Vanderveen House says:
    August 29, 2017 at 4:34 pm

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Welcome! We are Tony and Jessica Vanderveen, and are accidental real estate investors in Ontario. Find out how you too can create long term wealth, while maintaining your work life balance. Find out more...

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