Spring 2020 One Room Challenge - Week 3: Demo & Dry Fitting

I can’t believe we are already three weeks into the Better Homes and Gardens One Room Challenge! After Week 1 and Week 2, we’re over one third of the way through the challenge but not nearly one third of the way complete. While Grant and I were both focused on the challenge we didn’t make a lot of headway on our laundry room this past week. Most of our time was spent on demo, dry fitting and picking up building materials.

Demo & Dry Fitting

Grant took on most of the demo, removing the big corner closet to make room for our row of extra tall uppers that we’re using as lowers and removing the water damaged laminate flooring.

Next we put the cabinets into position so we could get a good feel for the space and make any changes prior to putting anything into position permanently. We’re not going too far with the sink cabinet until we see what we’ll need to do with the plumbing with a wall mounted faucet, butcher block backsplash and countertop to consider.

You can see from the demo image above that the electrical switch and outlet were right beside each other but not level. You might not think this would be a deal breaker but small details really make a big difference in a finished design. Thankfully Grant was willing to line them up and had it fixed it in about five minutes. It looks so much better!

We also did a few larger test patches of our muddy pink “Pinky Swear” by Benjamin Moore and I can’t wait to get the faux brick up on the exterior walls so we can start painting!

Curbside & Porch Pick-ups

This week restrictions due to COVID 19 started to lift and hardware stores opened to the public again after couple of weeks of curbside pick-up. We already had two curbside orders in place from the week prior and were able to get everything we needed except for a mailbox for Grant’s exterior project and a straw broom. With everything that has been happening over the past couple of months we were more than thankful to be able to move forward.

Butcher block countertops & Mr. Finnigan Flowers, our wheaten terrier and not-so-helpful helper

Painting

With all of the cabinet doors removed we started to paint them a rich deep brown called “Black Bean Soup” by Benjamin Moore. This is just one quick coat but I can already tell they are going to make the space (and Grant) very happy.

We still have a lot to do but the hard part should be done this week thanks to my brother and contractor Paul from Brancon. Restrictions have now lifted for trades as long as they can work solo so Paul will be handling the laundry sink, backsplash, countertops and working on hanging the antique door. Once the sink is figured out we can apply the faux brick panelling and start painting the entire space. That’s the goal for this next week - to get to the painting stage.

If you get chance hop over to the One Room Challenge site where you can see what other guest participants and featured designers are up to. There are some pretty amazing transformations underway.

Carley