My Latest Project
Well, I made many trips to the tack room down at the barn to do the laundry. I guess you could say it was good exercise! When we began building our house, we didn't have room at first for a laundry room. The tack room seemed as good a place as any for the time being.
Over the years, Gayland moved from the first little tool shop/storage building we built to his very large shop he's got now. That left a cluttered, little greasy building that wasn't being used.
Wa-lah! An old-time country laundry room was born!
Well, ok, in my head, anyway... as you can see below it wasn't quite what I had in mind!
It just happened that my 12 yr. old washer and dryer were both dying. When we finally broke down and bought new ones, Gayland moved them to the little shop for me. I've taken it from there. It still likes a long way in my transformation, but here's how it's coming along.
The first thing I did was rip everything out and scrub the walls. Next came a coat of paint. I wanted the floor to look like something other than concrete, so check this out...
Look again... it's paint! I drew off each square and painted it with concrete paint. Then I used a burnt umber craft paint to shade and shadow each tile. Finally, a coat of sealer.
I had ripped out all of the greasy counter tops, so I needed somewhere to fold the laundry. Here is the first piece I built for the room.
It's just a simple table built at a comfortable height to fold clothes. I finished it with a sage green over antique white and crackled it.
Next, I moved to the shelf above the washer and dryer. I redid it and added a face that matched the table.
Oh, goody! A place to put my old-timey nicknacks! Of coarse, I needed a fitting place to keep my soap, so I built the wooden soap box.
I was now hooked! It needed more, more, more....
Pictured here is an old cabinet I found at a junk store that I reworked to look like an old dry sink.
Then there's my new stove I got for Christmas! A stove in the laundry room, you ask???? It's just for baking my Santas and other polymer goodies!
But why not put the new one in the kitchen??? I would never part with the stove in my kitchen. It was my great grandmother's. She gave it to my mom who then gave it to me. It's the only stove I've ever cooked on or ever will. Heck, I wouldn't know where to start with an electric stove! You can see it here in the photo, although I need to take a better one someday.
Finally, there's my latest project...
I've always looked at antique pie safes and dreamed of owning one, but being the tight-wad that I am... well, you get the picture! I found a picture of an old one that I decided to use as a reference to build my own.
And, here it is-
It's going to be used to store fabrics, so I didn't punch the holes all the way through on the metal. It has just been dented. I don't guess the stars are true to the period, but I love them anyway!
Of coarse, it needed a pie! Or is it really? You'll find out more about the pie in weeks to come.
For those of you that know me well, it won't surprise you that I've had an idea about how to decorate this for Christmas the whole time I was building it!
Well, that's about it until I get the next wild hair! Check back in a couple of weeks to see what has become of the pie!
Want to drop us an email?
Click ol' Joe here-
