Laundry Room Bench - ANG and JOEY

As you know, we are in the fourth week of the One Room Challenge. We are incredibly happy with the progress. The tile is in and we have finished the laundry room bench. Man, Joe and I literally had our challenges trying to make this work, but we did it!

If you are just catching up with us, we started our laundry room project with the One Room Challenge in week two. Our new website went live and we jumped in quickly on the last day. To see our journey and where we began click on the links below.

Week Two | Week Three

The tile is done and I am loving it – I think Joe is too (wink,wink).

Here is another picture of the laundry room tile as you enter from the hallway.

If yo look at the picture above, you will see the white cabinet. We are going to remove this cabinet and this is where the refrigerator is going to go.

The Laundry Room Bench…

Remember when I said building the laundry room bench was a challenge? Well, we accurately needed to measure and build a bench that would give us enough room to move the refrigerator into place as well as the washer and dryer. The bench couldn’t be too deep, or we would have to rebuild. Joe’s dad always taught us, measure twice, cut once. We definitely used his advice here, making sure we measured several times for the correct clearance.

The bench had to have a place for shoe storage underneath. I found two baskets that would be perfect. When building this bench, it had to be built around these baskets to fit just right.

You can see how robust and sturdy the bench is here. We chose to use one piece of birch plywood that would be screwed into the back wall. Attached to this board, we secured three pieces of plywood butted together to give a beefy leg look. Birch plywood was used because it is smooth and paintable.

You can also see the shiplap we attached to the wall before pushing the bench in place and nailing into the wall. I wanted a tight fit and attaching the shiplap first was how we decided to see that through.

We then used premium and primed pine to frame out the front which gave it a built in custom look. Some people call this a faceplate. This was a way to create the look of “legs”.

We painted the walls with Aged White by Sherwin Williams. The shiplap and bench are painted with Edgecomb Gray.

Building the top of the Bench…

We also built a plywood top with an edge that fit perfectly over the faceplate so it gives the illusion of a thicker piece of wood. We then stained it to coordinate with the colors in the room.

You can see the difference with the stain below. Also, look at the pegs I purchased. We need to hang them soon, but this gives you an idea of where we are headed with color.

You might be curious to know what color stain was used on the bench. It is a semi-transparent exterior stain from Sherwin Williams – Harbor Mist.

So here we are with our project list… ( I am not crossing off the bench quite yet, we have to add some more built in features).

Laundry Room Project List

FLOOR AND BUILD PLANS – ~~Draw a floor plan and elevation sketches for exact measurements of space.~~
CABINETS – Remove and Replace with new layout and design. Replace upper cabinets, build surround around refrigerator, build lower cabinets – one for farmhouse sink, and another with a drawer and open space below.
FLOORING – ~~Remove and Replace flooring with black and cream tile in a diagonal pattern.~~
DROP ZONE – Build a bench with underneath storage for shoes and hooks for hanging necessities.
DOOR – ~~Replace the door with a floor to ceiling window to the outdoors.~~
FOLDING TABLE – Build a folding table positioned on top of the washer and dryer, this will include building a lower surround for the washer and dryer.
NEW COUNTERTOP – A honed marble countertop that coordinates with the paint and flooring.
WALL TREATMENT – Use vertical plank/shiplap to create interest – painted the same color as the cabinets, paint walls a light cream.
LIGHTING – Replace lighting by removing the fluorescent lighting.