Alright guys, welcome to week 3 of the $100 Room Challenge!! This week I’m giving you a sneak peak of our washer and dryer situation and showing you how we made a shelf to cover all of the pipes and hoses behind them. If you follow along on Instagram, I’m sure you’ve been laughing along with us as we figure this room out!!
What I love most about the shelf we built is that it can be lifted off in a moment to access the water lines and everything else behind the dryer. It was a SUPER simple DIY and it cost us $12 in wood to build.
I’ll be honest, I was expecting to be able to make this out of scrap wood for free, but we didn’t have quite enough in a board that would have worked. I had to trade this for the rug I wanted to buy to put in front of the washer and dryer, but ultimately, I feel like the shelf was the better choice. Are you ready to see what it looked like before we installed the shelf!?
This is the sight that greeted us right when we walked into the bathroom. Yeesh. It was stressing me out, but just LOOK at what we see now! And I CANNOT get over that gold hardware!! You won’t even believe how dirt cheap it was, but it looks and feels high quality!!
So much better, right?! And it is seriously the world’s easiest project to complete! All you need to do is measure the distance from your wall to your washer and dryer. Ours ended up being a 1 foot gap, so we picked up a 1×12 board in a 1o ft length at our local hardware store. We even “splurged” for the higher quality board that cost us a grand total of $12!!
Then, just measure and cut to the appropriate length.
Our shelf is kind of sneaky, because if you look at the side of the shelf where my husband is standing, we actually only attached a 1 foot side to it. This is because we wanted it to be able to pull aside easily to access all of the hoses and pipes behind the washer and dryer. We added an old shelf brace (you can see it if you look at the “before” photo) to support it. If the far side had gone all the way down, it would have been trapped around our washer and dryer. Also, by doing it this way, we only had to buy one piece of lumber 😉
Not too shabby for $12, right? We stained the shelf in Minwax Special Walnut, which we had on hand. This is my favorite shade of stain ever, and pretty much everything in my house is stained this color!
Another project we worked on this week was my subway tile backsplash under the gray cabinets. And it only cost $35. How is this possible?
Wallpaper!!!! Guys, I’ll be honest. The room was coming together, but I was starting to worry that it wasn’t going to be as great as it was in my head. Then we put this Devine Colors peel and stick wallpaper up, and BOOM. Totally brought the whole space together.
I was a little worried that using wallpaper to simulate tile might look a little, well, fake. But this stuff is actually textured and they did an excellent job of shading in the “grout” to look like like it had depth.
I got this puppy at Target. Again, I was a little hesitant: what if it doesn’t actually re-position (it does!) or what if I can’t get the air bubbles out (I could!) and what if it’s a huge waste of money (it wasn’t!!)!
The only thing: You will DEFINITELY need two people to install it. My mom and I were able to do it relatively easily together, but holy cow. Trying to do it myself would have ended in a huge disaster.
Thanks for helping, mom!! PS: The directions say to use a squeegee to smooth out air bubbles, but we found that a hard cover Eric Carle book works perfectly 😉
I’m gonna be honest, guys. This project has come together like a dream and is pretty much done! When does that ever happen?! I just need to finish installing the hardware and style it and we’ll be completely done! So here’s the rundown of my to-do list:
- Paint walls white-DONE!
- Paint cabinets gray-DONE!
- Center washer and dryer-DONE!
- Add cabinet hardware
- Add subway tile backsplash under cabinets-DONE!
- Make shelf to cover washer/dryer hoses-DONE!
Hardware–I’m comin’ for you this week! Thank you so much for checking in and I can’t WAIT to see you guys next week for the big reveal!!!
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Liz says
September 20, 2017 at 6:46 pmSO pretty! It’s seriously like a magazine.
Gabby says
September 20, 2017 at 7:38 pmThis looks great! I love the shelf idea and well, Eric Carlisle is awesome too! Ha ha. Can’t wait for the reveal next week.
Deneen says
September 20, 2017 at 10:01 pmGood job with the shelf. That’s a clever solution, especially utilizing the bracket.
Morgan says
September 21, 2017 at 9:23 amthis shelf is SO SMART I love it!!!
Emy says
September 21, 2017 at 11:50 amThe shelf looks great! And that wallpaper is so cool!
Meredith @ The Palette Muse says
September 21, 2017 at 11:14 pmThis laundry room is looking so bright and beautiful! And I love that shelf. Adding that one too my list!
Melissa says
September 23, 2017 at 7:04 pmThis is amazing!!! That shelf made all the difference in the world and who knew that wallpaper could look so good. Great job!!
Lindsay says
September 23, 2017 at 9:30 pmI LOVE the shelf! What a great use of space! I am definitely going to keep this in mind for our laundry room!
Erin- Lemons, Lavender, & Laundry says
September 25, 2017 at 7:23 amThe shelf looks amazing! Such a great idea to cover all those hoses! And I cannot wait to see how the tile wallpaper looks in the space! Everything is looking gorgeous, and I’m SO happy to hear that you are almost done! Yay!
Wendy says
September 25, 2017 at 8:08 amWow, that subway tile wallpaper looks amazing! I love it. I am so jealous that you are almost done….I am just about the opposite! UGH! Looking great!
Steph says
September 25, 2017 at 8:38 pmYou’re so talent, I always love the changes you make! Excited for the reveal!
Natalie @nelidesign says
September 26, 2017 at 6:37 amProjects come together like a dream in the $100 Room Challenge! If you are like me, it’s probably because you have a deadline ? your two projects looks so great! Can’t wait to see next week!
Taylor says
November 18, 2017 at 10:32 amI wish you had step by step directions for the shelf because I simply love the idea but my husband is pretty challenged in the area of carpentry ?
mdonahoe says
November 18, 2017 at 2:27 pmAww I am too! I promise it’s just a matter of nailing the two boards together!! As easy as can be! I’m sure he could do it!!! ?
Mary says
March 7, 2018 at 9:41 pmI love that I’m not the only person in the world with my washer and dryer in my bathroom, I have the same side view! I’m currently repairing after flooding from Harvey, this will be first on my after repair list!
mdonahoe says
March 9, 2018 at 9:44 amOh no! I hope the damage wasn’t too bad!!! You are certainly not alone, haha!! In our first home, laundry was in the basement, so I’ll take having it in the bathroom any day of the week 😉
Natalie says
April 4, 2018 at 9:29 pmDo you have a photo of the side w the 1′ side and the bracket? ! Not sure what you mean here and would love to do this!
Katie Paduch-Ledford says
March 16, 2019 at 6:17 amYes, I agree. Not sure that I understand what you mean!
Robin says
April 30, 2018 at 12:17 amI made this. I ended up screwing the boards together and then using small L brackets for extra stability. I happened to have the exact same stain on hand from a bed I built. I’m so happy with how it turned out. No more worries about my kittens getting behind the washer and dryer. Thanks for the inspiration.
mdonahoe says
April 30, 2018 at 9:50 pmAww yay!!! SO glad it worked out for you!!! You’ll love it so much!!!
Sandi Hodge says
May 11, 2018 at 8:32 pmThank You so much, I know that even I can build this and how to .make it Wonderful9.
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