The Blikstad Breeze: Renovations for clients~by Beth

Though a lot of life happens between my posts, I want to write today about something that has come our way. First, Jonathan took over as pastor of the village church beginning in the Spring of 2019. We didn't have services in the Summer at either park. During that time Jon got a big reno job from our friend, and chairman of the congregation, Kris. She has a rental in the village that needed a complete kitchen gut and reno, plus some other work. That's a post for another day. Also in the Spring Jon was asked to renovate a master closet for another couple in the village whom I will call the Bs. They were gone during the Summer and most of the Fall so we had plenty of time to think about how to best use the space and to do the work. Here are the before pictures:

Shower access

The previous owners had brought the washer and dryer into
the house and put it in a closet off the hallway which shared a wall with the master closet. The problem was that the closet wasn't deep enough for the appliances, so they simply cut out the wall and pushed them in 6-7 inches. We took the job and went on vacation to Ohio and Texas. When we returned we began on the demo and tried to piece together a solution for covering up the eyesore of the appliances butting into the closet and utilize every square inch we could. As projects go, usually it is a work in progress. I was the main designer and it gave me a lot of joy to see my ideas come to life. We had to tear down the drywall on the washer/dryer side of the closet. It was in bad shape anyway, but we needed to put a lot of bracing in to accommodate the shelves and rods we planned to put in.

a peek into the hallway

Building the cover up for washer/dryer

Then we drywalled, taped, and mudded. I usually end up sanding a lot of drywall mud because Jon likes to put it on thickly. This time I did most of the mudding and the sanding and I learned that I was pretty good at it. Of course I did watch some tutorials on Youtube first. I also did all the painting. Jon can do it but he tends to be too hasty with it so we have learned to do the jobs we are better at. He is great at carpentry. He did a great job on the beadboard, making the decorative shelf, baseboard, and putting up the shelves and clothes rods. We also had our friend Art secure the electrical outlet for the dryer to a stud. It was only screwed into drywall.

Cover is clad with a veneer

Painted and finished

Baseboard

I used her collection of hooks and spray painted them with a metalic gray, followed by a coat of clear enamel to protect them. She had about three styles of hooks, so by painting them a uniform color they became an eclectic group. But I got a little to heavy handed with the clear coat that caused the paint to bubble up. I had to sand, repaint and then recoat with the enamel. The bottom one was perfect but the top three had to be redone. ARGH. I did a total of 6 hooks

I also decided to stain the top to the washer/dryer cover. It needed a bit of drama to break up the white. We got two pieces of nicer wood. I stained them twice, then added 3 coats of polyurethane, which I picked up at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. Score! I was super happy with how it turned out. Jon then cut it to size and installed it.