{"id":21206,"date":"2014-01-01T19:51:43","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T00:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=21206"},"modified":"2014-01-02T18:16:34","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T23:16:34","slug":"the-basement-transformation-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=21206","title":{"rendered":"The Basement Transformation, Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of our most popular posts of 2013 was the transformation of the laundry area in my bungalow’s basement. \u00a0Mom came to visit for a week, and we spent a good amount of time on projects for the space. \u00a0It was totally worth it, though. \u00a0Many, many of our readers have similar cold and colorless areas where they have to do the laundry. \u00a0We painted walls and appliances<\/a>, hung a curtain wall, made curtains, created a rug<\/a>, and other projects<\/a> to make the room more cheerful and welcoming. \u00a0And even though I am still not a fan of doing laundry, at least now I have a better area to work in.<\/h3>\n

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It all started with this. \u00a0We shared the dismal pictures of my basement laundry area last week, and I am happy to show you the finished product today.<\/h3>\n

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It\u2019s one of the joys of living in an old house. \u00a0While you get the great character, you get the dingy basement laundry. \u00a0I hated going down to do laundry, and I wanted to create a laundry room that was fun and girly. \u00a0Then I would have my own space just as Mr. Spring has his wood working area. \u00a0This is what I started with, a hodge podge of mess.<\/h3>\n

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It was not a pretty sight. \u00a0First off, I had cords in every direction. \u00a0Insulation was showing around the window, which does help bring in some good light. \u00a0The first step was we (meaning my mom and yours truly) painted the walls that were exposed. \u00a0I didn\u2019t want to spend much money on this room so I chose the color I used for the\u00a0dresser<\/a>\u00a0I painted a couple months ago. I also painted some of the wood a nice bright white.<\/h3>\n

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What do you think? \u00a0I am thrilled with the difference and how it turned out.<\/h3>\n

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On the left you can see how I created \u201cwalls\u201d with a curtain.<\/h3>\n

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We bought rods from Ikea and attached them to the ceiling. \u00a0Be warned \u00a0– the hooks and rods to attach the curtains from Ikea were horrible. \u00a0I resorted to zip ties. \u00a0It is a good way to create walls in our basement and make this space feel more like a true laundry room. \u00a0My space is separated from the workshop and storage area.<\/h3>\n

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My \u201cold but still works\u201d great washer and dryer got a little makeover. \u00a0Come back tomorrow and I\u2019ll have a tutorial on how to update the look of your machines. \u00a0They look clean and crisp to me. \u00a0I use the top of the dryer as my folding table so it works perfectly.<\/h3>\n

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I had the horrible electrical box staring me down every time I went to do some laundry, and then I realized I had the perfect solution on hand to use as a cover. This old window was an original window from our house, and last year I converted it into a\u00a0chalkboard<\/a>. \u00a0If Mr.Spring ever feels he wants to do laundry, I have a cheat sheet on the old window for him to follow.<\/h3>\n

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Since I didn\u2019t want to spend much on this space, I tried to use what I could that was around the house. \u00a0Before I just had a light bulb hanging, and I thought it needed to be spiffed up a little bit. \u00a0I decided to use the shade from the\u00a0lamp\u00a0<\/a>I made from last year\u2019s neighborhood\u00a0beer crawl<\/a>. \u00a0I then took some ribbon, which I had on hand, and my mom glued it to the shade. \u00a0I thought it was a good way to add a feminine touch to this once masculine shade.<\/h3>\n

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I am lucky to have both of my grandmothers still living. \u00a0One of them who is 88 would go down very narrow stairs to an old house basement and do laundry up until last year. \u00a0I said I would never complain about doing laundry because she was still doing laundry in her basement. \u00a0Now, both of my grandmothers have washers and dryers on the main floors of their houses, and they love it. \u00a0I said I won\u2019t complain till I am 88. \u00a0So, I decided I needed to have my grandmothers as part of my laundry room. \u00a0Here they are in their younger days on their bikes. \u00a0I just love this photo of both of these amazing and strong women. \u00a0It\u2019s amazing to me that they lived in different parts of the country but had similar photos of themselves on bikes.<\/h3>\n

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There isn\u2019t a darn thing I can do about this huge pipe. \u00a0I found this cute sign at Hobby Lobby for 50% off, so I thought I would make the most of the pipe and hang this sign on it. \u00a0After all, this whole deal is about changing a negative into a positive. The basket is for clothes pins. \u00a0A cheery plant, my\u00a0homemade detergent<\/a>,\u00a0and a jar for all the found \u00a0change help make this room functional.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0Since there were no doors on the storage cabinets, we selected some frilly fabric, and my mom made curtains to use as doors. \u00a0They are a nice bright spot in my newly redone laundry area.<\/h3>\n

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One of our most popular posts of 2013 was the transformation of the laundry area in my bungalow’s basement. \u00a0Mom came to visit for a week, and we spent a good amount of time on projects for the space. \u00a0It was totally worth it, though. \u00a0Many, many of our readers have similar cold and colorless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[3,13,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21206"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21206"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21215,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21206\/revisions\/21215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}