Buh-Bye Cabinets, Hello Shelves!

The first step to making our laundry room more functional is to really amp up the storage. To achieve that goal, Nick and I decided to rip out the ill-sized cabinet above our washer and dryer and replace it with some economical open shelving that spans the full width of the space.

About a billion screws had been added over the years to keep it in place and many of them were stripped, but we removed as many as we could, gave it a few good tugs, and in no time had set it free for a better life in the country (at my sister’s new place).

Check out that kelly green paint! Paint a white “SHS” on there and you’d have my high school’s logo. I love me some throwback school spirit as much as the next girl, but this isn’t really working for me. And the wall is a mess from all those screws. Nothing a little spackle can’t fix though I think.

We went to Lowe’s and picked up 3 1×12′s for the shelves, as well as 1×2′s to support each shelf on three sides. The friendly folks at Lowe’s cut them to size for us. Take a squint below and you can see how the whole operation works.

We mounted the 1×2′s to the wall one at a time, using a level to make sure they were straight and a studfinder to decide where to place the screws. We thought placing them 13″ apart would make them evenly spaced, but apparently we were wrong. I think the shorter space available above the top shelf will be perfect for the lesser used items we’re sure to place up there anyway. Another little miscalculation resulted in the side supports sticking out a little further than the front of the shelves, but I’m not stressing about it. I figure when we paint the supports the same color as the walls and the shelves bright white the little oversight will hardly be noticeable.

I’m totally stoked about these shelves for the following reasons:

  • I won’t sprain my abs anymore trying to reach the laundry detergent
  • I can fit more stuff up there
  • Keeping it open means I’ll be compelled to keep it organized
Next up is painting the walls, shelves, and trim (which is some kinda nasty), then loading the shelves up with pretty and functional storage. I’m more excited than a nerd before Comic-Con.

7 Responses to Buh-Bye Cabinets, Hello Shelves!

  1. Janet (Country Mouse}

    Looks like a good start!

  2. Pingback: Ch-ch-ch-changes | Living Well on the Cheap

  3. Pingback: Gathering Inspiration | Living Well on the Cheap

  4. Pingback: Bonus Post! Updated How-To Page | Living Well on the Cheap

  5. Pingback: Unfinished Business | Living Well on the Cheap

  6. Pingback: When in Doubt, Outsource it | Living Well on the Cheap

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s