Grocery Shrink

This is my current laundry room.  I do 3-4 loads of laundry every day.  (Actually Darren and the kids do most of the laundry.)  It is always a mess.  The ugly floor, dark walls, poor lighting and tight work space make it kind of miserable.

To make the room better, we decided to remove the left bank of cabinets, then paint the room a pale gray with bright white trim. (Look how the window is no longer partially covered!) I bought this rug for the space when it was 60% off:

Damask Trellis Navy Blue Runner from RugsUSA.com

Then I bought these:

To make the wall across from the washer and dryer look like this:

Household Essentials Hanging Cotton Canvas Laundry Hamper Bag
And then I bought some rusty metal shelf brackets half off at Hobby Lobby, similar to these:

(This are also from Amazon) 

To go above the washer for an open shelf for my laundry powders which I keep in glass candy jars.

Instead of all these plans, we are bumping that left wall out 2 feet–the window will look almost centered!  The new doorway will be right across from the washer where Caleb is standing in the first picture.  I need to make the laundry side of things pretty since the door way won’t have a physical door to close on it.  I want it open since I’m in and out of there all the time.

To the left of the new doorway my carpenter is building me laundry basket drawers, 3 baskets wide and 3 deep with folding space on top.  Similar to these but one stack shorter:

From anawhite.com
I <3 Ana’s blog

Then the other half of the room will be my pantry.  I’m dreaming of the perfect pantry and am not sure what that will look like.  But here are some pantries that are similar in shape and space:

From periodextensions.com.au

I like the idea of counter space in my pantry 🙂

I’m not sure of the original source:  Pinterest just said Flickr.  If you own this let me know and I’ll give you credit

I love the baskets and antique feel in this one, but think I would like shelves on all 3 sides.

This pantry just used google as it’s source on pinterest, so I’m not sure who to give credit to. It uses the space the best of all 3 pantries, but not as cute as the wooden shelf brackets in the image right above.

I think I’ll still use the rug and the gray wall color idea.  And am excited for new light fixtures too.  Thankfully the old ones aren’t working properly so I can justify buying new ones :).

I’ve been stressing out lately–all broken out in hives just thinking about the massive remodel that we are planning for late spring.  We will be rearranging all the plumbing in our master bathroom; replacing the fixtures; tiling the floor; removing 3 walls in the kitchen; dining; and family room areas; moving a 4th wall over 2 feet and moving the doorway;  switching the kitchen with the dining area; gutting the space to the studs and starting over!  I’ll be without a kitchen and main floor bathrooms for quite awhile.

Kitchen Before (Current) The little wall with the 2 windows is leaving.  It’s only job was to hide the sink (now in the island) from the living room.  This space will be the new dining room.

Current view from the living room.  Old kitchen; new dining room.

We will remove the island, the cabinets and walls between the dining room and the kitchen making this one huge space. The wooden door you see here leads to a walk in pantry.  This is all leaving too.

View from the doorway beside the current refrigerator. Old dining room, will be the new kitchen.

The plan–After removing the center wall separating the kitchen from the dining room and making it all one big room. For reference the new refrigerator will sit approximately the same place the old freezer is (the one right next to the doorway.

We actually have a budget this time from the sale of our other house, but it is about 1/3 of what a normal person would plan to spend on such a project.  That means we will have to do a lot of it ourselves; shop used; and decide which parts we can cut back on.

http://camilleroskelley.typepad.com/simplify/2012/04/the-house-house.html
Wood-look porcelain tile–trying to make this fit into our budget to floor the whole space

We started by having Lowe’s bid the kitchen with their lowest cost cabinets.  They were still plenty nice and the bid came back $29,000 including their discounts and uninstalled!!!! Um, that’s almost our ENTIRE budget for the bathroom and kitchen.  Not going to work.  Next week went to Cabinet Giant and had them build in their TOP QUALITY cabinets.  That bid came out $12,000 with their discounts. Still a little high, but much better.  By switching the dark wood to a slightly lower grade cabinets, we were able to lower the bid to $7100, that’s more like it!

Our upper cabinets

Our lower cabinets

It turns out the color is even better for what we had in mind. We are planning a two toned kitchen with light upper cabinets (to keep the kitchen bright) with dark lower cabinets (for sturdiness and to add richness to the space.  We used these pins for our inspiration:

from: http://theenchantedhome.blogspot.com/2011/05/ultimate-kitchens-round-ii-and-better.html
Two-toned kitchen inspiration from Pinterest

Another two toned kitchen found on pinterest

I’ve lived without a kitchen during our remodel at our previous home for about 6 months.  I washed dishes in the bathtub, cooked in the living room on a folding table with an electric griddle; microwave; and crock pot.  And blew a fuse (in the house, lol) almost every day.  Our current eating out budget is $35 a month, which doesn’t go far for the 8 of us. I’ll have to figure out how to continue to make all our meals at home.  I did it before and was pregnant for part of that time.  I know it’s possible, but it was horrible. Just the memory is enough to give me hives, lol.  I would have made a terrible pioneer.

Here’s a current view of our dining room window wall. (The only part of this remodel that makes me sad is I just painted this room and added molding. This was before we knew that tearing down walls was possible. The white balance is all off in this picture–the upper is light turquoise and the bottom is gray.

Here’s a drawing of what it will look like after the remodel.

Dining wall before

Dining Wall After

We are moving this wall forward 2 feet from where it stands now. My laundry room is behind this wall and is 17 feet long but only 6 feet wide. (Another post on what it looks like will come later.) By moving forward the wall, I can divide the room into a laundry room and pantry. The new door will be across from my washing machine and will leave the pantry side completely available for shelving. I’d love the move the wall even more, but the dining room window is in the way. I’m hoping to make the doorway arched like this:

Arched Doorway (almost the same floor plan as ours, but a different style–and our ceilings are only 8 foot.)
Picture from Southern Living

This one has the doorway on the opposite side, but the colors and style are more like what I’m hoping for our space.
From Traditional Home: http://www.traditionalhome.com/design_decorating/kitchens/kitchen-update-pay-back_ss16.html

Garage Side Wall Current

Garage Wall After

Since I will have a huge pantry on the other side of the wall, the cabinet pantry will become my new command center. People like me should not have a desk in the kitchen–it will always be covered with an unsightly pile. I’m imagining cork boards and chalkboards on the back of the cabinet doors, with mail sorters, pencil cups; and file boxes inside. I’ll keep track of our schedules, important papers; appliance instruction books; and items to return to others in there.

Chalkboards inside cabinets from 11magnolialane.com

Cork Boards Inside Cabinets From Younghouselove.com

There’s more to tell, but I’ll save it for another post :).