Laundry room - bits and pieces

This weekend I managed to wrap up a few odd jobs I still had left to do in the laundry room.

One thing that was screaming out for attention was the shut off valves for the washer. When the laundry room was initially drywalled the valves were down behind the washer. I like to be able to turn off the water when we're away for an extended time, so it made sense to make them accessible. Unfortunately, "accessible shutoffs" equates to ugly.

I wanted to put something in front of the valves to disguise them, but still allow easy access. I considered hanging a picture, but it's low to the counter and a picture looked very strange there. Then I remembered that I had a number of old heat registers that we'd replaced during the reno hanging around in the fireplace (yes, it's a strange place to store them, but it's just temporary). As luck would have it, there was one that fit perfectly.

I removed two screws and the white front piece popped right off of the thick louvered part so I could hang it flat against the wall. Since the grate holes still allowed you to see the ugly shutoff valves, I wrapped a thin piece of cardboard in some white cotton that I had hanging around in with my sewing supplies and used the glue gun to attach it to the back of the register cover. Then I hammered in a couple of nails and hung it on the wall.

It looks so much nicer than the gaping hole with the red and blue valves in it, and it's still easily accessible for us to shut off the water.

I also hung two more pictures up above the counter, on the end wall next to the door.

These are Matthew's and Cal's first pairs of shoes that I framed a number of years ago. Matthew wore those red doggy shoes every day of life when he was a baby. They're an adorable reminder of how tiny their little baby feet used to be.

I also managed to get some handles on the two top cabinet drawers. I was taking advantage of the beautiful, record-breaking weather this weekend and was spray painting a chair on the front porch, and noticed that the doors from two of the uppers that we'd removed from the kitchen were sitting out there. So I pulled the handles off of them, and installed them on the upstairs cabinet.

They're not cup pulls, but they're the same finish and they look pretty good. I may decide to look for matching handles at some point, but these are fine for now.

And finally, I was at Homesense last week and came across these awesome jars that are just the perfect size for holding our laundry soda and brightener.

I recently switched to Nellie's Laundry Soda and also use the Oxygen Brightener for whites. I love the stuff! It cleans all the stains out of the kids clothes, but my favourite part is how compact it is. The giant Costco-sized vats of Tide cluttering up the laundry room used to drive me crazy. Now I just use a tablespoon of the soda per load. So much easier (and prettier) to store!

So that's all the small jobs finished up in the laundry room. The only remaining task is to hang the drying racks, which I admit I'm procrastinating about. I think maybe I'll have our contractor come over and take a look and give me some advice before I tackle that job.