This is the second post about our mudroom and laundry renovation. The first was a brief look at the before and after photos. This post will fill in all the details, mostly in photos, for those interested in how we did it.
One thing you should know before I start is that it was hard work. VERY hard work. Because we had to fit it around having our gorgeous 5 kids in the house at the time, and it wasn't the only project we were working on either. The side ramp was a 1/3 built over this period and Craig took down two sizeable palms as well as a retaining wall.
These are a few of the before photos (once most of the easy-to-move items were out of the way.)
The floor was previously tiled (poorly!) I removed these tiles a long time ago over two full days. The mud room was converted from a walkway with two exterior exits (one never used) to a room with one external exit and a window on the opposite wall. Craig and I rendered the walls which were red brick and fitted the room with skirtings and trim. It was painted all white in 2014.
Step 1: Preparation, sanding, filling, sanding, cleaning everything.
First thing was to get rid of was glue around the windows, as the room had previously been used as a dark room.
My first job with the floors was to use a paint scraper to remove all of the tile glue residue. It took a full day and a half to do this. After I felt it was ready, I used a putty 2 part epoxy for holes and uneven sections of the concrete floors (and walls.) Basically I just broke a piece of the clay-like two-colour substance off, worked in my hands like clay for 1 minute, then had a couple of minutes to apply it before it set. I only did a little section at a time, and my hands hurt afterwards (and were a mess!) A couple of hours later I was able to sand these sections alongside other sections of the walls of floors that needed a once over. The floor was a very messy and time consuming job. Two full days in all. Looking at it now, all the preparation was worth it. The floor is lovely underfoot.
The laundry tub was removed late one night.
Holes in the walls were filled and sanded.
Finally, everything was cleaned with sugar soap. Everything. Then allowed to dry. The restoration of the four old vents was a shocker. Sanding, cleaning and painting them was a big job.
Step 2: Undercoat!
I feel like we always have a tin of undercoat/primer/sealer at the ready! It felt good to be finally finished the pulling apart, making-it-worse phase.
While doing the undercoat, I went to Bunnings to decide on a floor colour. I actually sat on the floor and looked and chatted with Craig, and then came home with a colour that was too light. Craig was going back to Bunnings the following day, so they managed to darken the colour. We were very happy with the final colour.
There were many very late nights, fuelled by caffeine and sugar. And the study resembled an episode of Hoarders.
We became a tad delirious!
Step 3: Ceiling and skirtings.
Craig took care of the ceiling and I painted the skirtings. It's funny looking back, that we do work so amazingly well as a team. I think one of the benefits of having 5 kids is that we feel permanently like members of a team sport where the team walks in for a conference and yells "break!" at the end of it. Only our conferences are usually in hiding from our children, in the kitchen or our bedroom. As a result we can make decisions very quickly and get started right away, because it is how we survive everyday life!
Step 4: Tiling around the bottom of the laundry walls.
Welcome to our 'tile storage.' As it turns out we have tiles in three other locations also. That will be remedied soon. We were happy to discover that we had a good amount of tiles in the style and colour we wanted for around the bottom of the laundry walls.
I haven't tiled much before, but last time it was a disaster, so when Craig was out picking up the retained floor paint I had him purchase a better tile cutter for me. It still wasn't expensive, but worked a lot better than the other style we had. I decided to use a premixed adhesive. The tiny tile piece below was my first cut.
I made sure the top of the tiles was level, even though the floor was anything but level. It required some creative tiles spacers between the floor and tiles. Below is the last tile. My goodness I look terrible! Happy and exhausted!!
It was then left until it was ready to grout. I did the grouting for the toilet area with the grout on the right, below. It was old grout we found downstairs and was lumpy. It was very difficult and I tried to smooth the lumps out with my hands! Hours later I impatiently made some new grout up, this time sifting the dry grout first, before adding water. Bingo! Perfect consistency. And it cost us nothing.
Step 5: Painting the walls.
We bought the 10L tin of special paint a long time ago, back when we painted the mudroom originally. I was going to paint the laundry white too. But I changed my mind. Craig didn't really care either way, but I decided it needed a warmer colour. Back to Bunnings. Unfortunately they wouldn't put tint into the tin for us because we had used some. They would however sell us the tint needed (Berkshire white) for a full tin, placed in a jar. The colour ended up a little richer and was a pain to mix, but we like the end result. I ended up putting paint into the jar and mixed it, then returned it to the tin.
Step 6: the floor.
I painted the undercoat on very quickly. It was done while I waited for the rest of the family to get organised and get into the car for swimming. The paint took a long time though, mostly because I wanted that perfect line around the edge where the wall tiles met the floor.
Step 7: Plumbing.
This took a bit of figuring out, and a chat with the guys at Bunnings. The tub is now in perfect working order, but the taps are not. We have put the old taps back on and have a hose extension lead for the washing machine. The 'seating' of the tap need to be changed for the new taps/washers.
Step 8: Tiling again!
I forgot that I would have to tile a backsplash! I grabbed some tiles from the tile storage and of course loved the most difficult one to tile.
I decided on tiles down the side to hide the imperfect edges of the horizontal tiles.
Above is a picture from before I added grout. Below the excess tile adhesive can be seen. I used a different kind for this job due to the glass tiles. The other adhesive is grey/black. This one is cream. It is more time sensitive however. It is applied, then left for 30mins, then there is an hour until it is set. Talk about pressure! In this time I also had to cut the tiles around the taps because it could only be done after the first 'sheet' of tiles was applied. The excess tile adhesive was cleaned off with turps, and I touched up the paint the following day.
It was late when I applied the grout and I forgot that some of the tiles in the mosaic were stone, so didn't wet the tiles first. I will be scratching grout off them for some time to come.
Step 9: Installing the Ikea cupboard.
We chose a red Ikea kitchen cupboard for the laundry wall and are not sorry! It looks great. A laundry is usually a mundane place full of work. This adds a bit of fun. It is a 70cm (h) x 40cm (w) wall cupboard, and cost only $45.
Step 10: Put everything back and connect it all!
The fun part: getting to use the room we had just worked so hard on. We were disappointed that the taps didn't work properly, but once we found a solution (thanks to a lovely plumber friend!) we were happy. Below is a picture of our first load of washing, done shortly after putting everything in the room.
Craig putting the shower curtain up after midnight.
The after:
There are many more after photos in the previous post, but here are a few.
And the all important mud room. It is overloaded with disorganised items at the moment, but will be ready to go before school begins.
The purchases:
Epoxy $16.00 x 2
Tint for wall paint $5.90
Wire brush $4.50
Tile cutter $29.90
Wall cupboard $45.00
Laundry tub $221.00
Tile adhesive $37.20
Floor undercoat $40.70
Floor paint $58.50
Universal conversion taps $99.00
Items we already had:
Undercoat
Wall paint
Ceiling paint
White tiles
Mosaic tiles
Grout
Easy (cream coloured) tile adhesive
Ikea shower curtain (white)
Tools and other items such as sandpaper and sponges
Jen.x
While doing the undercoat, I went to Bunnings to decide on a floor colour. I actually sat on the floor and looked and chatted with Craig, and then came home with a colour that was too light. Craig was going back to Bunnings the following day, so they managed to darken the colour. We were very happy with the final colour.
We became a tad delirious!
Step 3: Ceiling and skirtings.
Craig took care of the ceiling and I painted the skirtings. It's funny looking back, that we do work so amazingly well as a team. I think one of the benefits of having 5 kids is that we feel permanently like members of a team sport where the team walks in for a conference and yells "break!" at the end of it. Only our conferences are usually in hiding from our children, in the kitchen or our bedroom. As a result we can make decisions very quickly and get started right away, because it is how we survive everyday life!
Step 4: Tiling around the bottom of the laundry walls.
Welcome to our 'tile storage.' As it turns out we have tiles in three other locations also. That will be remedied soon. We were happy to discover that we had a good amount of tiles in the style and colour we wanted for around the bottom of the laundry walls.
I haven't tiled much before, but last time it was a disaster, so when Craig was out picking up the retained floor paint I had him purchase a better tile cutter for me. It still wasn't expensive, but worked a lot better than the other style we had. I decided to use a premixed adhesive. The tiny tile piece below was my first cut.
I made sure the top of the tiles was level, even though the floor was anything but level. It required some creative tiles spacers between the floor and tiles. Below is the last tile. My goodness I look terrible! Happy and exhausted!!
It was then left until it was ready to grout. I did the grouting for the toilet area with the grout on the right, below. It was old grout we found downstairs and was lumpy. It was very difficult and I tried to smooth the lumps out with my hands! Hours later I impatiently made some new grout up, this time sifting the dry grout first, before adding water. Bingo! Perfect consistency. And it cost us nothing.
Step 5: Painting the walls.
We bought the 10L tin of special paint a long time ago, back when we painted the mudroom originally. I was going to paint the laundry white too. But I changed my mind. Craig didn't really care either way, but I decided it needed a warmer colour. Back to Bunnings. Unfortunately they wouldn't put tint into the tin for us because we had used some. They would however sell us the tint needed (Berkshire white) for a full tin, placed in a jar. The colour ended up a little richer and was a pain to mix, but we like the end result. I ended up putting paint into the jar and mixed it, then returned it to the tin.
Step 6: the floor.
I painted the undercoat on very quickly. It was done while I waited for the rest of the family to get organised and get into the car for swimming. The paint took a long time though, mostly because I wanted that perfect line around the edge where the wall tiles met the floor.
Step 7: Plumbing.
This took a bit of figuring out, and a chat with the guys at Bunnings. The tub is now in perfect working order, but the taps are not. We have put the old taps back on and have a hose extension lead for the washing machine. The 'seating' of the tap need to be changed for the new taps/washers.
Step 8: Tiling again!
I forgot that I would have to tile a backsplash! I grabbed some tiles from the tile storage and of course loved the most difficult one to tile.
I decided on tiles down the side to hide the imperfect edges of the horizontal tiles.
Above is a picture from before I added grout. Below the excess tile adhesive can be seen. I used a different kind for this job due to the glass tiles. The other adhesive is grey/black. This one is cream. It is more time sensitive however. It is applied, then left for 30mins, then there is an hour until it is set. Talk about pressure! In this time I also had to cut the tiles around the taps because it could only be done after the first 'sheet' of tiles was applied. The excess tile adhesive was cleaned off with turps, and I touched up the paint the following day.
It was late when I applied the grout and I forgot that some of the tiles in the mosaic were stone, so didn't wet the tiles first. I will be scratching grout off them for some time to come.
Step 9: Installing the Ikea cupboard.
We chose a red Ikea kitchen cupboard for the laundry wall and are not sorry! It looks great. A laundry is usually a mundane place full of work. This adds a bit of fun. It is a 70cm (h) x 40cm (w) wall cupboard, and cost only $45.
Step 10: Put everything back and connect it all!
The fun part: getting to use the room we had just worked so hard on. We were disappointed that the taps didn't work properly, but once we found a solution (thanks to a lovely plumber friend!) we were happy. Below is a picture of our first load of washing, done shortly after putting everything in the room.
Craig putting the shower curtain up after midnight.
The after:
There are many more after photos in the previous post, but here are a few.
And the all important mud room. It is overloaded with disorganised items at the moment, but will be ready to go before school begins.
The purchases:
Epoxy $16.00 x 2
Tint for wall paint $5.90
Wire brush $4.50
Tile cutter $29.90
Wall cupboard $45.00
Laundry tub $221.00
Tile adhesive $37.20
Floor undercoat $40.70
Floor paint $58.50
Universal conversion taps $99.00
Items we already had:
Undercoat
Wall paint
Ceiling paint
White tiles
Mosaic tiles
Grout
Easy (cream coloured) tile adhesive
Ikea shower curtain (white)
Tools and other items such as sandpaper and sponges
Jen.x
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