Tag: 3D rendering

  • Laundry Room Mockups and Floor Plan

    Laundry Room Mockups and Floor Plan

    Imagine the cardboard box is a wooden counter. Imagine I’ve installed the sink and faucet, caulked the gaps along the foundation wall, and faced the toe kick. You can see it, yes?

    Nicole (Making it Lovely) in the Laundry Room

    I shared a preliminary design when I first started planning the laundry room. Now that it’s nearly complete, I wanted to share the floor plan and mockups in their own post. I stayed fairly true to the original vision.

    Laundry Room SketchUp Plan 2

    I go back and forth between SketchUp and Photoshop when designing. Sometimes I think I should learn to render for SketchUp with Podium too, but should I really? (Anyone with experience there, is the learning curve steep?) I did learn how to make my renderings look like line drawings, and I’m like great. That’s one cool trick for now, let’s move on.

    Laundry Elevation: Sink (SketchUp)

    Laundry Elevation: Sink (Photoshop)

    Laundry Room Overview

    I can touch the ceiling easily (I have to pay attention when folding big things like bedding). It’s a weird old basement, not an ideal space, but the worst of it is in the corner by the gas meter. We have a secondary fridge downstairs and to the right of it, there are lots of pipes coming out of the wall, hooking up to the meter, and then running across the ceiling. It’s not the prettiest spot, but adding a cabinet instead of the antique treasure chest left behind from the previous owners is an improvement in storage. (Kind of a downgrade in terms of creepy magical items though.)

    Laundry Elevation: Fridge (Photoshop)

    I’ve added more cabinets to the other side of the room and a pair of sconces above. There’s also an adjustable-height stool because I like to include a seat in the laundry room when possible. Sometimes we like to have a chat while one person is down there moving laundry from the washer to the dryer, or folding clothes. Or maybe there’s five minutes left in the washing cycle and I want to sit and scroll through Instagram? I don’t know. A seat comes in handy!

    Laundry Room SketchUp Plan

    Laundry Elevation: Cabinets (Photoshop)

    I could hang this abstract landscape painting above the counter and be done. But I got it into my head that I should paint my own thing because why not. Yay? Nay? It’s a laundry room. I may be overthinking the importance of its decor, but it makes me happy when it looks nice.

    I’ll tell you what I was convinced I didn’t want, which is a sign that said “laundry” or “fluff ‘n’ fold” or “drop your pants” or whatever, until I saw this 8-foot vintage sign and I wanted it real bad. There are always exceptions.

    Laundry Room Overview 2

    I’ll share the counter-making process, and then it will be reveal time!

  • Closet Plans and Layout

    Closet Plans and Layout

    Being surrounded by all of your clothes as you drift off to a peaceful slumber really kicks up that urge to pare down, especially with the whole New Year thing.

    It has been a couple of months since the closet’s contents took over the bedroom as we emptied the space to work on it. The carpet has already been ripped up, the terrible subfloor repaired, and new solid oak flooring put down. I’ve also removed the old sheet mirror from the sink nook and have made progress on those crumbling plaster corners. (They’re so much better! I scrapped the corner trowel and just did one side at a time. Far easier technique.) One spot needs a touch more work, but I’ll wait to mix up another batch of mud. There are new holes to come, hopefully as soon as this week, when new wires will be fished through.

    Repairing Plaster Corners

    One of the electricians was working on pulling a whip from the closet today, and she lowered the ceiling fixture to get a better look at the wiring in there. The house is 125 years old and it has been updated in bits and pieces over the years, so some areas are all right but the closet doesn’t look like one of them. Paper covered wires (plus a few modern wires spliced in, temporarily).

    Old Paper-Wrapped Wires

    This, by the way, is the only type of wiring I’m ever confronted with when changing a light fixture. What a crazy day it will be when I go to put up a new light and the colored wires will match what the instructions tell me to do!

    Once the rewiring is done in there, I can get in patch the new holes that are being made. Since the ceiling needs to be accessed anyway, I’m taking the opportunity to move the light over about six inches and center it. More patching will of course mean more sanding, which means more fine white dust everywhere, but then it will finally be time to wipe down the walls, prime, and paint. The walls and ceiling will both need it.

    Here’s where we’re at.

    • Empty the closet

    • Remove wall-to-wall carpet

    • Rip up old wood floor

    • Repair the subfloor

    • Install new hardwood flooring (to match the original)

    • Remove sheet mirror

    • Patch the plaster wall and corners behind the mirror

    • Rewire (sconce, ceiling fixture, two switches, two outlets)

    • Patch holes and damage from rewiring

    • Paint prep (mostly cleaning all of the plaster dust everywhere)

    • Prime (walls and ceiling)

    • Finalize design plan

    • Repair or replace garment rack (I fixed it!)

    • Research and order new closet fittings

    • Paint (walls and ceiling)

    • Rewire antique lights or choose replacements

    • Rehang lights

    • New mirror above the sink

    • Add storage near the sink

    • Install new closet fittings

    • Zhush it all up a little

    • Put everything away (paring down in the process)

    Is that everything? I think it is.

    I worked with the 3D rendering I’d made again, playing around with the best way to organize our closet. There’s only one long, straight wall that makes sense for most of the clothes, but I thought that a mix of double hanging (what we had) and shelves would be more useful. And if we could get our floor length mirror in a different spot, it would free up space on the only other straight wall for additional storage. The Sarah Storage collection looked like a perfect fit so I reached out to Ballard Designs and they’ve sent a few pieces over. They’ve already arrived and I’m pretty excited about them, but they’re hanging out on the first floor until the closet is far enough along to bring everything up.

    Such a funny layout, but it’s going to be so great when it’s all put back together again!

    Closet Layout 1

    Closet Layout 2Closet Layout 3

    Closet Layout 4

    Closet Layout 5Closet Layout 6