What have you been up to? ....

Winter in NC ... cold enough that I can only hit a bucket of balls about once a week, but warm enough that if I decide to do something aroung the house I am able to work in the garage.  So, when one of my friends from Ohio might call and ask what I've been up to lately, I can tell them that my son, Doug, and I have redone our laundry room.  It was so blah, and I figured as much time as Pam spends in there, she should have something nice.  So, check this out....

This is a shot of the room as it was before we began our project.  Nice enough but very boring.

We had seen a picture of a nice room in a magazine and Doug and I said that we could do that.  He has really become quite the project guy since he moved here. He has lots of room to work on his things.Be sure to check out the "fort" we built at his house for the kids.

Here we go.  One of the best things we got for this project was an air compressor and a couple of nail guns.  Boy those really made this project go lots smoother and quicker, and no hammer marks on the boards.

One of the things that slowed us down a bit was having to work around the washer and dryer.

I have no ego problems ... I was a good carpenter's apprentice and "go-fetch" boy.

Pam did a lot of the touch-up painting and did a good job.  good steady hand.

Another thing that held us up a bit was lugging that big step ladder in and out. Solved that by going to the hardware store and buying the middle sized ladder so we could finish the painting without marking it all up as fast as we painted it.

OK, so now we were fitting out the upper cabinet and getting ready to brace it.  This went pretty well.

Pam was painting the cabinet front.  We took the doors off and painted it out in the garage.  Doug built the "front" at his house. Cabinet doors are painted and drying on the right of the picture.  Each day the paint brushes and rollers had to be cleaned up -- good job for Pam, right! 

Finished product.  Pam is going to do a little more decorating and maybe we'll put in a couple of small under cabinet lights to highlight the items on the shelf. 

The little pictures don't do it justice.  I think it looks really nice and a lot more pleasant for Pam  on laundry days.  It wasn't too expensive if you don't count the tools that we bought that we'll use all the time anyway for the next projects.  Also, it actually only took a couple of weeks of off- and -on working.  Probably could have done it in a week or less if we had all the materials  on site at the same time. Oh well, not bad for our first project here.

So, bottom line -- nobody got a finger or hand power nailed to the wall, nobody fell off the ladder or got knocked through the door from plugging in the dryer while standing in a puddle of water, and there were no divorce decrees issued.  They tell me that happens a lot when newbies undertake these kinds of projects. 

“Man Pain Is When You Do Something Stupid” ... (a line from "Tool Time" featuring Tim Allen.)