The Laundry Closet is DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is another project I have wanted to tackle since I bought this house, and it's finally DONE! I had everything in place and the shelves stained for while now, but the thought of hanging three very heavy shelves ... on a plaster and lath wall ... and making sure they were all level and spaced evenly really intimidated me. But, I figured the shelves weren't going to hang themselves, so I put on my big girl panties and went for it. While I was hanging the shelves, there were many, many, many times I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but I persevered!

The walls are plaster, so hitting a stud was essential. The shelves are heavy, so holding them in place by myself to mark the screw holes for the brackets was very difficult. Plus, I also had to make sure the shelves were level. This definitely would have been easier with another pair of hands ... but somehow I managed.

Here's the AFTER ...

When I moved in, my side by side washer and dryer took up most of the closet. There was a little space on each side and there was one long shelf across the top, so despite having a whole closet, in reality, I had very little storage. I left the doors on the closet (because the washer and dryer weren't very "decorative"), so I'd have to close one side to use the washer, then close the washer side to use the dryer. It was a hassle, but I lived with it. (First World problem, right?)

And now here's the BEFORE ... (the "line" in the middle is the light pull-string)

The old chest in the AFTER picture was in the closet in the guest room, and I needed that room for toys. Moving it meant buying a stackable washer and dryer and putting the old chest beside it. The chest holds a lot of Davy's things, so moving it  made sense. I had toys piled on it when it was in the guest room closet, so putting more things in the chest was a chore.

A couple of friends moved out my old washer and dryer and hooked up my new ones. They put the vent for the dryer hose above the electrical outlet, but there's no way I could get three shelves with it located there ...

So I moved it below the outlet ...

I had bought a 2x12x12 and had it cut into three, 4' pieces for the shelves ...

And stained them ...

Then I hung beadboard on the back wall of the closet. I didn't bother making it neat around the outlet because I had bought fabric to hang just beneath the bottom shelf to hide all the hoses and wires. The string for the light makes it look like I messed up on the beadboard, but (again) that's just the light pull-string ...

Finally, and with great trepidation, I hung the first shelf ... (and added an angel (temporarily) at the end of the light pull-string). This shelf was particularly maddening because I had intended to use the brace on the side wall as guide to keep the shelf level. After I hung the first shelf, it was not level. Not even slightly. It was then that I realized the side brace wasn't level. Ugh! I had to remove the shelf and brackets and start over. Second time was the charm ...

Then the bottom shelf ... (This time, I moved the light pull-string out of the way before taking the picture) ...

Then the middle shelf ... and it's done!

To someone who knows what they are doing, tiling the bathroom and hanging these shelves would have been a piece of cake ... but I do NOT know what I'm doing ... so for me, they were NOT a piece of cake!

There are other projects I want to tackle, but after the bathroom and the laundry closet, I'm not exactly anxious to dive into another project, so they're going to have to wait. Plus ... I still have to grout the tile in the bathroom. The plan is to do that tomorrow (which will be "today" because I'm not posting this until tomorrow!), then I will be 100% done with both projects. What a relief, and what a sense of accomplishment I feel!