Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Laundry Room sprucing

Doing something, anything with the laundry room has been on our to-do list for a long time. Its only as wide as the washer and dryer, and deep enough for a door to open so its more of a glorified laundry closet than a room. Also, its in the middle of the house so its windowless. Doing laundry is never fun but doing it in this room was downright depressing.

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Notice the same stained vinyl flooring as the guest bathroom. Eventually we will tile it but that project is pretty low on the priority list.

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As someone who craves order I dont know why I let that fiasco on the shelf happen. The only stuff that really needed to be there was the glass jar of homemade laundry soap, the oxyclean, the vinegar which we use as fabric softener, and a few other laundry supplies. (I wont bore you with more details about our homemade laundry soap and vinegar fabric softener but if you want to know more let me know and I'll elaborate.)

That brown mark on the top of the dryer is a bunch of rusty scratches. Replacing the dryer is on the list because it takes forever to dry clothes, but like tiling the floor its not happening anytime soon.

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The only laundry basket we had was too big for the corner so we resorted to throwing dirty clothes on the floor. I guess with the shelf being such a mess I felt like a messy laundry pile was acceptable. The light fixture was just kind of blah and I thought we could replace it with something with a little more pizazz.

So what did we do in here?

When we installed the crown molding in the guest bedroom and craft room we had some pieces leftover that were just the right size for the laundry room. I know crown molding in a laundry room sounds a bit excessive but I love how it turned out! We painted the walls and ceiling the same gray as the guest bathroom, and all the trim got a coat of white. I'll have to do another post about how I made the light fixture - it used to be a shiny brass light in our living room!

This is the laundry room now:

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With the light turned on the wall color is a bit off - it looks warmer. Its actually a cooler gray which you can see in the photo below with the light off. I really love how the white crown molding pops off the gray walls and ceiling.

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The shelf got cleaned up and prettified!

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We use Mrs Meyers on our sheets - I love the lavender scent. The big glass jar holds our laundry soap and I got a smaller jar for the oxyclean - I thought it was nicer to look at than the plastic container.

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I got these glass bottles to hold vinegar (fabric softener) and distilled water (for ironing). Again, much prettier than the plastic containers! The woven basket holds things we use in here but didnt want sitting out on the shelf.

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The jar of wooden pegs is purely decorative. I thought it was a cute idea but Josh thought it was ridiculous. I guess he might be right but I still like it.

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This is the former 'clothes pile' corner. I saw this galvanized metal trash can at the home improvement store and realized it would fit perfectly in the corner. Its bigger than it looks in that picture and can hold a lot of clothes. And for $16 it was a steal! The sunflower photo is one I took last summer and I like how the sunny yellows look with the gray walls.

Those three metal things on the wall are these snazzy hooks we found at Ikea. When they're not in use they're flat against the wall and then you just fold them down if you need to air-dry something. Genius!

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And here's one last shot of the room. I am on the lookout for a small rug to put in front of the washer and dryer - I think that will be a nice finishing touch.

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We are very happy with it!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Slacking

Somehow its been almost 2 months since I last blogged anything. Oops. Right after my last post Josh and I got the flu and felt like crap for almost 2 weeks, and then my dad came to visit for 10 days. Besides that we haven't had much going on.

While my dad was here we went to the California Academy of Sciences. Its such an incredible place from the sustainable design of the building to the exhibits. I had intended to take tons of photos but I was too busy reading and looking around to take many shots. Here are the few I did take ...

This is the Rainforests of the World exhibit. The rain forest is in the middle and then there's a ramp that winds its way upwards around the outside of the plants and trees and as you go upwards you see what the plant life looks like from the rain forest floor to the tops of the trees. There were also displays with snakes / lizards / frogs that would typically be found in a rain forest. It was a really cool exhibit. And so hot and humid. I could have done without that part but I guess they needed to make it realistic :-)

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Up at the top there were a ton of birds and butterflies flying around. This is the only photo I snapped inside the exhibit because my lens (and glasses - how embarrassing) were totally fogged up.

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They have a pretty big aquarium section and I always find myself drawn to the pretty colors.

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I think my favorite exhibit was the one about Climate Change. I work hard to keep my carbon footprint low, we try to eat responsibly (local, sustainable, little meat, etc.), recycle like crazy etc. etc. so I was all over this exhibit.

Josh and I both really liked this quote:

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It should be easy to read but just in case it isn't, it says "climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks."

They had this thing where you could estimate your carbon footprint ...

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... not too bad but we could do better!

I thought this was an interesting fact:

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There was an area where kids could write their ideas and it was fun to read them.

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These were all over and the reason I took a picture is because I liked how the 'trash' is labelled 'landfill.' I think everyone would recycle and compost more if they thought about where their trash landed up.

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Just before we left we walked through a small Antarctica exhibit and saw this cute little (stuffed) guy - we decided he was the cutest thing we'd seen all day so I had to snap a pic.

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I wish I'd taken more photos - I guess I'll have to go back!


Another day we headed to the beach with my Dad. We'd had so much rain while he was here that we had to take advantage of the one sunny day he had. We were surprised to find what looked like a whale carcass in the sand.

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Here's one with my dad in it for scale. He is well over 6 feet tall so you can see how big it is.

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When we got home we looked it up and learned that back in October a female blue whale and her male fetus washed up on the beach after the mother was struck by a boat. It sounds like the fetus was aborted in the ocean after the mother died and then they washed up together. The mother wasn't there anymore (probably got washed back out to sea) and all that's left is the baby's rotting carcass. Very, very sad. We found some pictures and video and its just amazing how big the mother was. I'm glad she wasn't there anymore when we went because I probably would have cried.

Okay now I have to post a more cheery photo so this post doesn't end on a depressing note. My dad and I love jigsaw puzzles (much to Josh's disgust) and we did three 1000 piece puzzles while he was here. We worked on them at the dinner table and the dogs desperately wanted to be included so we pulled up a chair for them and they happily sat there and watched. They are weird but incredibly dear.

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