One Room Challenge Spring 2022 - Week 2 - The Laundry “Room”

Well, week 2 of the challenge has started (ended?), and I want to share the progress so far. Spoiler - its gross. Want to check out how other challengers are doing? (You should - its definitely inspiring!) Visit the ORC website here to find other projects!

My goal this week was to get everything ordered/picked up, demo, and repair the drywall where needed. I got 1.5 of these things done. A huge reason for that is we are still finishing up odds and ends on our last home project (the basement bathroom) and I had promised my husband I would have that done before starting anything else. Obviously, that didn’t happen - but we have a fully functional bathroom again, so moving in the right direction.

Fully functional basement bathroom! Finally!

Now, back to the laundry room! I have ordered everything I need for this project except for the Ikea cabinet that I will be using for shoe storage. Unfortunately, the 5 Ikea locations closest to me were all out of stock of the cabinet style I need - and I refuse to pay the same amount for shipping as the actual cabinet if I don’t have to. I am visiting family in VA this week, and one of those locations has them, so we may be making a pit stop along the way. (This is how you know my husband is wonderful and super supportive - willing to stop at an Ikea on a 7 hour drive, with two kids in tow, so I can write a blog post about it, ha!)

I picked up the wall cabinet yesterday - it is an unfinished stock 36x30x12 upper from Lowes. It will do the trick, but is going to need a little TLC considering I gave myself a splinter running my hand over the door yesterday. I plan on sanding, priming, painting, and adding hardware to it before hanging it. I also grabbed the wood and hardware for the open shelves and molding for around the door, and have ordered the new drop ceiling panels.

You can see my pile of reusable bags shoved out of the way.

I also demo’d the space this week - cut the drywall to make it easier to install new, took down the door (that was cracked and not sound proof at all), took down the cabinets, and removed the ceiling panels…. and those last two steps is where it got gross. We live in an older home in CT - and we have definitely had mice in the house in the past. Well, I found where they were living - in the ceiling above the laundry room. This makes sense - they had access to the kitchen and all the bathrooms from there, and that is where we found droppings before our kitchen reno (when we sealed every nook and cranny with stainless steel wool and spray insulation). Let’s just say, I have never felt so gross as I did after pulling the ceiling tiles down and seeing what was raining down.

Ew. Just ew.

The good news (?) is I did find a few locations where I suspect they are getting in:

• The dryer vent to outside was not well sealed - I could see daylight

• Openings around the pipes running from the garage into the house

• The bathroom vent fan exhaust also had gaps with the siding.

This time, I used this rodent barrier spray foam instead of stainless steel wool and regular spray foam - it has stainless steel pieces in the foam already which is what keeps the mice from being able to chew their way through it. This will not only help insulate the house better, but should also reduce their access. It’s also finally starting to warm up outside, so hopefully they already all moved out for the season and we didn’t just lock them into the house.

Super easy to use! (If you want to grab some, here is a link: Rodent Barrier - it is cheaper on Amazon than in Lowe’s)

I did not get to repairing the drywall yet, because of the added time needed to clean up the mouse mess - but I am glad to have the ceiling opened up and airing out while we go on vacation for my kiddo’s spring break this week. I won’t be able to make any physical progress on the room this week since we will be out of town, but I will share some renderings I have created of the final design so you can see the direction we are heading!

It always gets worse before it gets better, right?