Tired of looking at wires and pipes in your basement laundry room, but don’t have the budget for framing and drywall? What about a photo backdrop to keep the necessities accessible – but out of sight and create a (slightly more) appealing unfinished laundry room?
Popping in for a quickie today… lol
No, not ‘afternoon delight’ sort of quickie, but a quick fix to a nagging eyesore;
My laundry room is an ongoing aggravation in my life. Granted, I only spend any amount of time in it once or twice a week – but it’s SO UGLY!
I did get a quote on having it all framed, drywalled, puttied and primed and it came in at $4,000. I contemplated learning framing and drywall myself to save some money, but Hubby is/was adamant that I not cover up any pipes, ducts or wires. Outside of our furnace and water heater, this is the ‘control centre’ for the house. All of the electrical runs to that box on the left, and in the ceiling (not shown) is a boat-load of duct work and plumbing. He doesn’t want any of it “tidied” for fear of losing easy access.
So I’ve racked my brain to come up with an alternative to kinda-sorta finish an unfinished laundry room….
then a friend mentioned how they’d been to a hotel that had large canvases hung in front of the walls.
BRILLIANT!
I started surfing canvases and wallpapers thinking I could create 3 frames out of 1″x2″ wood and hang them as three panels along the back wall.
Then I remembered I had this photo backdrop that I purchased a couple of years ago (and only used once) sitting in the garage:
It’s 10′ x 10′, so I cut it down to fit the unfinished laundry room wall. I really only wanted the brick, not the wood flooring, and since I only planned to cover half of the wall it was perfect.
I stapled the photo backdrop to a piece of 1″ x 2″ and then screwed the wood to the ceiling joists.
I know, I’m covering the window, but the majority of the light in our laundry room comes from the overhead fluorescents, so I wasn’t fazed. I don’t think I’ve ever gazed longingly out of the picture window in our unfinished basement. Quite frankly,the window’s not finished either, so it was too ugly to look at as well.
I had to cut a separate piece for over the utility sink to take into account the dryer duct placement, furnace duct, and pipes. This piece of the photo backdrop is much smaller and I added an extra 1″ x2″ board to the bottom of it so that it would hang straight.
Again, just stapled on.
It’s not ideal, but it’s considerably better right?
Pretend you didn’t notice the new folding table in the room – that build is coming up in another post.
The photo backdrop is just a plastic sheet, so it’s as easily moved as a curtain should we need access to the fuse box.
I’m just about finished my folding table, and then I’ll be re-painting some beat-up cabinets I picked up at a garage sale. My basement laundry room will have to stay unfinished, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better.
It won’t be magazine-worthy, but it will certainly be improved – and probably a more achievable/realistic fix for those of us not on HGTV. (yet wink)
Stay tuned!
