Cloth - Easy Chevron Laundry Wall Art

When I started planning the laundry remodel I knew I wanted to incorporate a bunch of fun patterns.  What is more fun or trendy than chevron!

I am so excited to finally get to share this project.  I actually finished these up a few weeks ago but didn't want to show them off until I could put them up on the black and white stripped wall. 

Swoon...I am in love!

Project Ranking
Difficulty - Easy
Frustration - Low
Makeability - 100% Worth It

Materials
Fabric
Card stock paper
Cricut (or some other stencil method)
Frames
Cutting Mat (optional)

My frames were from Ikea.  I wanted pretty thin frames as I didn't want them to stick out from the wall too much as the space in the laundry room is pretty tight.  I didn't want to keep getting caught on the frames and yanking them off of the wall.

Instructions

Step 1 - Iron and measure out your fabric. 

Step 2 - Decide on your wording, size, and font.  Cut out your letters.

Step 3 - In order to easily arrange the lettering in the frame I used a quilt cutting mat.  I arranged my frame face down.  Lay out your letters facing backwards until you get the location and the spacing you like.  You can use the hash marks on the mat to get even spacing.  Carefully fold the fabric down over the letters.  This is the trickiest part as the letters could move a bit on you.  I didn't glue my letters down in anyway but that would probably work out great.

Step 4 - Close up and hang.  Easy peasy.

Cheap and quick wall art.

I am really happy with the way the color and pattern contrasts against the black and white wall.  The laundry room is starting to all come together...finally.

Wood & Cloth - Laundry Room Update - Painted Vertical Stripes

What is black and white and looks amazing....?  The wall in our laundry room!

After the wallpaper debacle I was expecting a complete mess on the painted stripe front.  The husband was completely dreading this part of the remodel as he was certain the stripes would just come out messy and need a ton of touch up. 

Thanks to some helpful tips on Pinterest we were able to complete this entire project in a few hours.  If you are thinking about stripes...do it!


Project Ranking
Difficulty - Medium
Frustration - Low
Makeability - 100% worth it

Materials
Laser level
Paint (We used Valspar Clean White in Satin & Valspar Barn Door Black in Satin)
Good quality blue painters tape
Paint rollers
Paint brush

There are a bunch of tutorials for stripe painting on the web.  All go about things in a slightly different manner.  Most recommend that you try to stick to neutral colors that are similar in shade to each other.  The thought being if the colors are similar little mistakes will not be as noticeable.

So what did Wood & Cloth do...?  We picked colors that are the polar opposite from each other.  That is just how we roll.  We like to live on the edge and throw caution to the wind. 

We are pretty bad ass.


Instructions

Step 1 -  Paint your wall with one of your colors.  Choose your lighter color.  Obviously for us it was the white.

Step 2 - Make sure your initial wall color is completely dry before moving onto any of the stripe work.  If your wall is not completely dry you may have issues when you put down the tape for the stripes.

Step 3 - Figure out the length of your wall and how wide you want your stripes to be.  Our stripes are ~6 inches wide.  We ended up with 18 stripes.  9 of each color.  Mark off your measurements.  We only made marks on the bottom of the wall.  Not on the bottom and the top.  We ended up checking the measurements in the middle and top of the wall as we were applying the tape in an upcoming step.

NOTE:  Don't get too caught up trying to make all of the stripes exactly the same size.  Pick an easy size to measure, a round number works great.  We ended up with the first and last stripe being slightly larger than the other stripes.  The difference is so slight you can't even tell.

Step 4 - Get ready to begin taping.  Before you begin taping make sure that you can devote time to this project from the start of tape to the end of painting.  The key here is to get your tape on and off in a timely manner.  If you don't have enough time and need to break up the painting into 2 sessions...don't!  If you leave the tape on too long you risk pulling paint off when you remove it. 

Our laser level had a pin on the bottom which made it easy to hang on the wall.  Using the measurement marks as guides we placed the laser level close to the baseboard.  Depending on the straightness of your wall you may have to play around with the laser level in order to see the line all of the way up the wall.  Sometimes we had to pull the level away from the wall as much as possible to compensate for some waves in the wall. 

Before we placed the tape we did a quick measurement check in the middle and at the top.  Adjust your level if the spacing is not consistent.

This was probably the hardest part of the project, getting the level straight.  It involved the wife laying on the cold hard tile in order to see the level bubbles and making small adjustments while the husband yelled down instructions like..."clockwise a smidge" "too far" "not far enough" "back" "almost" "counter clock wise a bit" "the other clockwise".

Starting at the top of your wall place the tape along the laser line on the side of the stripe you will NOT be painting.  So for us we always put the tape on the white stripe side, not the side we would be painting black.  In order to help us keep from being confused we actually wrote a "B" on the black stripes.

You want to make sure that the tap along the side of the stripe that you will be painting is pressed down pretty good.  You want a good seal.

NOTE:  The stripes that you will not be painting will look a lot smaller than your to-be-painted stripes.  This is correct.  They are the same size but because the tape for both edges is part of the non-paint stripes it will mess with your head making them look smaller.

Step 5 - This step might be the best DIY trick ever.  It really works!  Using your lighter color paint (the one that is already on the wall) paint over the edge of the tape that borders your to-be-painted stripe.  The point is to seal the tape edge to prevent bleeding of your stripe paint underneath the tape.  This trick really will give you razor sharp lines on your stripes!  We did not use much paint for this step.  You don't want any drips and you don't want it to be too thick as you want it to be able to dry quickly. 

Let the paint dry for about 45 minutes before moving onto the next step.

Step 6 - Break out your darker paint!  This step was intense.  Black paint is intense.  Painting right next to white paint is intense.  I found myself not breathing as I was painting.  Truth be told the majority of the goobers we ended up with in the end had nothing to do with leaks under the tape.  They came from accidentally painting outside the lines. 

Some tips for this section....

***Make sure you are painting the correct stripe!  Double check before you put down your roller or your brush.

***Having 2 people works well and ensures you get the tape off quickly.  We had one person painting the tape side of the stripe with a brush while the other was rolling the stripe. 

***We painted 2 coats back to back.  By the time we finished up all of the stripes the first coat was pretty much dry so we just started right into the second coat. 

Step 7 - Remove your tape.  By the time we finished all of the stripes with a second coat the first ones were already pretty dry so we didn't really wait any additional time to let the paint dry.  You will have to make a judgement call on when to pull the tape off.  You want it pretty dry but not too dry.  Start at the top of your wall and pull.  Be careful not to let the tape hit your wall on the way down as it may still be a bit wet and you don't want it to hit your other stripes and make a mark.

This part was pretty scary.  We had no idea what to expect. 

We could not have asked for a better result.  There are a few touch ups here and there (seriously only about 5) but even with the black/white contrast the tape & paint combo kept the lines perfect.

Wood & Cloth - Update - Dyer is out of the hallway!

It was a gloriously beautiful weekend.  The sun was shining, birds were chirping, the whole neighborhood was out enjoying the first really warm day of the year.

We were in the laundry room.

At least we got a bunch marked off of the list.

We installed the cabinet doors....

We lined the shelves with contact paper...

We moved the dryer back into the laundry room...and did load after load of laundry!

We built the windowsill...



We did not finish painting the trim.  Partially because we ran out of time and partially because we may not paint it white.  Stayed tuned!

We did not begin work on the stripe wall.  That part of the project could be a bugger so it is probably better to start that fresh, not at the end of a weekend.

Another weekend has come and gone.  Stuff got done and other stuff didn't.  I am loving the way things are coming together.  Getting the cabinet doors installed really made the cabinets look finished and amazing if I do say so myself, and I do!

Wood & Cloth - Laundry Room Remodel - Little by Little

Every night when I walk in the door I am greeted by our clothes dryer.  It is a struggle to shimmy my way around the dryer in the middle of the hall while carrying my laptop and purse.

We need to kick this remodel into high gear!

Accomplished this week:
-Crown molding on top of the cabinets.
-Repair dings, dents, divots suffered during the cabinet install
-Finish painting the cabinet doors
-Order contact paper for the shelf liners
-Put additional paint coat on above cabinets

On tap for the weekend:
-Finish up all white painting (floors, baseboards, crown molding, windowsill)
-Attach cabinet doors
-Build windowsill and frame window
-Build shelves for the cabinets (the husband kind of forgot about this)
-Move the dryer back into the laundry room (Yay!)
-Do laundry
-Design and paint the black stripes on the wall

Even if we only accomplish the bare minimum needed to be able to move the dryer back into the laundry room this weekend, I will consider the next two days a success.

Wood & Cloth- Laundry Room Update - The Install

We have all had those times when you look back at a situation, that at the time was not funny in the slightest, and laugh. 

Such is the cabinet install.

The husband had installed a runner board along the wall for the bottom of the cabinet to rest.  This not only made it easy to get the cabinets straight but it gave the a place for the cabinet to rest so that it wasn't all up to the husband and his brother to keep it held against the wall.

The first cabinet went up without a hitch.

The studs were located and screws attached to the wall.  Every time the stud finder came out both the husband and the brother made comments that there were "2 studs over here" while pointing at themselves.

The second shelf went up without a hitch.

That is where the good times stopped rolling.

The husband had taken numerous measurements along both of the walls to determine how square and straight the walls where before he even began building the units.

For the record...walls are not perfectly straight.  If you are under the delusion that the walls in your home are indeed straight I hate to be the one to burst your bubble.  But they are not.  They ebb and flow a bit making installation of wall to wall cabinets tricky.  Typically professional installers will actually cut some of their cabinet edges on site to fit the wall.  We did not have that option.

From the initial measurements we knew it was going to be a tight fit.  However after the 40 billion coats of paint and one small section of the wall that jutted out a smidgen bit more that the rest it pushed us over from tight to an hour and a half of work to wedge it in.

We pushed it...we rocked it...we tried to brute force it.



After a ridiculous amount of effort and a good deal of swearing an attempt was made to sand some of the wall down.  Seriously we were so close it would make you cry even one less coat of paint on the stupid cabinets and it probably would have gone in.

Finally after so many attempts I thought arms were going to turn to jelly they managed to shimmy it in. 

Is it aligned perfectly...nope.  Do I care....nope.

We did suffer a bunch of collateral damage in the attempt to get the third cabinet jammed in there.  The brother's mad strength lead to a piece of cabinet breaking off and a hand sized indent in the back wall.  Apparently bracing yourself against the back wall to get traction to push up on a cabinet isn't a good idea.

Good thing we had Spackle!

Wood & Cloth-Update-Laundry Room Demolition

The demo for the laundry room was a relatively easy one.  Not much in there means not much that needs to come down.

We tore down the shelf (and by we I mean the husband...wood was responsible for the majority of the room prep as I wasn't even able to budge the shelf with the crowbar!)

We filled with Spackle.  This was our first time using this brand of Spackle. It goes on pink and dries white.  It actually worked really well for anyone that wants to try it out.

Next came sanding.  Note the Sophie pug behind the husband.  That dog loves power tools!

Finally the room was ready for paint.  We wanted to get a couple of coats on the walls before the cabinet install.  Without the cabinets in the room it was much easier to move around while painting.

Next up the epicness that is the cabinet install....







Cloth-Update-Wallpaper and Paint

I am posting this from the comfort of my home and not a jail cell so either I was able to keep my cool when I returned the wallpaper or the husband bailed me out.

I actually did a good job of communicating my frustration in a constructive manner and ended up walking out of there with a 10% discount on our purchases!  I do think it should have been 20% but I will take what I can get.

We did make a decision that instead of trying to track down a different wallpaper source we are going to paint the strips on the wall ourselves.  It can't be that hard...right?

This weekend we were crazy busy with the laundry room.  We worked on so many parts of the project it will take multiple posts to cover all of the chaos that went down this weekend...it was epic! 

The goal for the weekend was to be ready to hang the 3 cabinets on the wall by 6:00 PM on Sunday.  The husband decided that there was no way I was going to be able to help him hang the super heavy, super high cabinets.  He figured that if Wood and Cloth tried to do the installation job themselves we would have to change the name of the blog as one or both of us would undoubtedly be crushed by a falling cabinet.  So we needed to complete all of the cabinet painting and room prep before the husband's brother came over on Sunday to work on his taxes.  Fair trade, free tax prep for the installation of our cabinets. 

Win, win.

As of Friday we had not even started painting 2 of the 3 cabinets and the initial cabinet still needed more coats to cover the devil stamp.  We also needed to get the laundry ready for installation which required some demolition and additional painting.

Thursday Night - Primer coat on cabinet pieces
Friday Morning - Primer coat on cabinet pieces, paint coat on front of cabinet doors
Friday Afternoon - Purchase cabinet door hardware, cabinet door knobs
Friday Night - Paint coat on cabinet pieces, paint coat on back of cabinet doors
Saturday Morning - Paint coat on cabinet pieces, paint coat on front of cabinet doors
Saturday Afternoon - Demo of the laundry room, removal of shelf, wall patching
Saturday Night - Paint coat on all cabinet pieces, paint coat on back of cabinet doors
Saturday Night - 1st coat of paint in the laundry room (white, no strips yet)
Sunday Morning - Paint coat on cabinet pieces, paint coat on front of cabinet doors
Sunday Afternoon - Walk pugs
Sunday Morning - 2nd coat of paint in the laundry room
Sunday Night - Cook dinner for the husband's brother and girlfriend (another bribe for help)
Sunday Night - Cabinet install, paint coat on back of cabinet doors

It was an aggressive schedule and completely our own fault, but we did it! 

If I never see white paint again it will be too soon.

Tomorrow's post....Laundry Room Demo!

Cloth-Ramblings-Wallpaper

The laundry room remodel is turning into a circus freak show.

Last night I came home from work to find a package waiting on my doorstep.  I wasn’t expecting a delivery but packages are always a welcome surprise, especially when the package is your back ordered wallpaper delivered 5 days early.

That is where the good vibes stop.

I opened the package only to find the wrong wallpaper. 

How was it wrong?

*1 - The wallpaper was supposed to be delivered to the store for pickup, not directly to my home.

*2- The company that made the delivered wallpaper was Imperial.  Not Allen & Roth like I had ordered.

*3-The white strip was ivory.

*4- There were small gold bands between the ivory and black stripes.  The wallpaper I ordered does not have these gold bands (I double checked).

My euphoria from the early delivery was short lived.

After a frustrating call to the paint service department I found myself in the car on the way to the store with the crappy wallpaper.

At this point I was pretty sure that this was not a mistake in delivery that in fact the wallpaper I had ordered had actually been discontinued.

Why did I think my wallpaper had been discontinued? 

*1- When I initially tried to order it online I got an error code when I tried to place the item in my electronic cart.  The error stated I needed to call customer service to complete my order.

*2- When I called customer service the first time I got disconnected.  (This issue did not actually lead me to believe that the wallpaper had been discontinued but it as long as I am venting I thought I would put it all out there.)

*3- When I finally got in touch with customer service they told me that for this particular item I needed to order it directly through the store and not through their website sales…what?  If you have it listed for purchase on your website why shouldn’t I be able to order it through website sales?

*4- I was originally supposed to receive the wallpaper on April 2^nd but was back ordered to the 15^th.

*5- I received a really close (but much more lame) wallpaper.

 So after another frustrating conversation with the paint service department, this time in person, I found myself in the car on the way back home with my crappy wallpaper.

Apparently the company that shipped the wallpaper was closed and I would have to wait until tomorrow to have them call to check on the issue.  Why I couldn’t have been told that before I drove in with the crappy wallpaper, I will never know.

Calls were placed today.  Some by me, some by the paint service department after getting an annoyed call from me reminding them to call the wallpaper company.

Bottom-line…the wallpaper is discontinued.  The wife is frustrated.

How am I frustrated? 

*1- If you offer products online for purchase I expect you to pull those products from your website when they are no longer available.

*2- If you have discontinued an item that someone has on order I expect you to contact that person and let them know. DO NOT just send them crappy wallpaper and hope they won’t notice.

*3- If you are a big box hardware store that contracts through companies that think it is okay to switch out items without informing your customers and then make them waste a month of their time waiting for the non-existent item…shame on you.

Thanks for letting me vent.  I will be returning the crappy wallpaper tonight.  I will try to convey my dissatisfaction in a controlled adult manner that will not end up with the husband bailing me out of jail.

I will try.

Wood & Cloth-Spring Gardening

Spring is always a bit of a roller coaster.  You can have wonderfully warm weather that sends you digging in your closet looking for shorts one day and a snow storm the next. 

Every spring it is balancing act to get our peas planted in the garden.  Too early and your soil is either still frozen or soaking wet from the last snow storm.  Wait too long and your precious little peas get baked in their little pods by the summer heat.

We took advantage of the dry and warm weather this past weekend to get the peas in the ground. 

The husband took this opportunity to use the ATV (he is still bemoaning the fact that we had a mild snow winter which meant he did not get to plow the driveway very often) to transport the compost from the garage to the backyard.  Was bungee-cording the bags of compost to the ATV and driving around back necessary? 

According to the wife…nope. 

According to the husband…absolutely.

As we only planted peas this round the husband decided that he would hand-turn the dirt and compost.  We should have used the tiller.

Last year was our first year planting peas.   We planted one row and did have a nice crop.  This year we upped the game and planted 4 rows of peas.  Peas are the wife’s favorite and there is nothing like shelling and eating so many peas that your fingers turn slightly green.  So 4 rows it is! 

With the sun shining we took the opportunity to do a bit of yard clean-up.  As you can see from the picture our backyard is a tumbleweed Mecca.  Tumbleweeds from all over the world jump our fence just to snuggle up in our backyard.   We hate tumbleweeds.  They are pokey, ugly, and fight you every step of the way when you try to shove them into the garbage can.   

They also take up a crazy-mad amount of space in the garbage can.  We can literary get 2-3 in the can at a time.  So…it is pretty much going to take us the remainder of the year to move the pile out of the backyard. 

Too bad there aren’t any good craft projects that use tumbleweeds.

Wood & Cloth-Update-Laundry Room Remodel

The laundry room project has been one of give and take.  Just when we finally take a few steps forward…we immediately take a couple back.

FORWARD

1) All 3 pieces of the cabinet are complete, sanded, and ready to be painted!

2) All 4 cabinet doors are complete, sanded, and ready to be painted!

3) Yellow chevron fabric came and the wall decoration I have been planning is finished.  I can’t wait to show it off but I want to wait until I can actually show it against the striped wall paper.

4) I think every room should have a splurge.  Something that can’t be DIY’d (or at least not by us).  My splurge for the laundry room is the cute yellow owl that was part of the inspiration for the room.  After looking around for something similar I kept coming back to the owl.  My test for if I really want something is to walk away from it.  If I keep thinking about it and it is still available it was meant to be.  Unfortunately sometimes you walk away and when you come back it is no longer there….that really stinks and it will haunt you for the rest of your days (sigh…cherry bowl from Sur la table…).  Thankfully the owl didn’t get away and it is currently being kilned (is that a word?) and will be on its way to me very soon.

(From Fruitfly Pie on Etsy)

BACKWARD

1) The wallpaper is on backorder until April 16^th.  It was supposed to be here on the 2^nd.

2) Due to a slight error in measurements 2 of the door panels needed to be redone.  (We do not speak of this with the husband.)

3) Painting has become a ridiculous folly.  Covering up some black stamps on the wood has taken 3 coats of “high hide” primer, 4 coats of white paint, and a ton of the wife’s sanity.  (We do not speak of this with the wife.)

NOTE:  I truly believe that the wood we have is possessed by the devil himself.  Pure evil is leaking out of the black stamp.  An evil so otherworldly that just when you think you have covered it up it sneaks back out in the middle of the night ready to devour your soul.

NEXT

1) Next up is to demo the old laundry room.  We need to get the current shelf out and begin to prep the walls for painting and wallpapering.

2) In order to move forward on the painting we will be looking into a Catholic priest that is willing to come out and perform an exorcism on the black wood stamping.  Hopefully the cost of the exorcism is covered in our laundry room budget as I already used my splurge on the owl.

3) Hardware for the doors needs to be purchased as well as some cute knobs.


This project is turning into a bugger...and we still have a ton to do!