ORC Week 3 DIY laundry room wood counter top and wallpaper install

We are moving right along with our laundry room makeover! Dan is kicking some butt on the carpentry end. This weekend, he made our counter top and its looking GOOD! First we had to make a dreaded family trip to Home Depot to get the supplies on Saturday morning and the girls didn't disappoint. And by that I mean that they did. They were on their rascal behavior A Game big time. Ughhhh!!! lol But we got through it after some tears due to splinters from playing swords with the paint stirrers, getting looks from other shoppers because we were using a wood cart as a surfboard, and lots of grabbing things off the shelves and making me scramble to put them back. We were exhausted before we even began working. Ha!

Once we got home, Dan hung the ledger strips which will hold up the counter. (After some careful measuring of course) 

Next step was to cut the oak plywood to fit the space and also make cutouts for the plugs and hoses to fit through. That way we can still unplug the washer and dryer if needed without taking the whole counter top off. Dan has the measuring precision of a ninja! If ninjas measured things... 

Then it was my turn to do some work. I sanded all of the wood, prepped it with a wood conditioner, stained it, and finished it off with a polyurethane coating to protect the wood from moisture. I kept going back and forth with whether or not I wanted to stain the wood at all but in the end decided to use the same stain we used in our kitchen to keep that same theme going. The kitchen opens up to the laundry room so it looks pretty to have the same stain when the laundry door is open. Here is what we used. Apparently I am team Minwax. 

After all of the wood was stained and ready to go, Dan installed the wooden dowel for hanging clothes to dry. I didn't really want any kind of bracket showing on the outside of the cabinet to hold the dowel, so he drilled through the inside of the cabinet right into the dowel to hold it up. 

And on Monday my amazing mother came over and hung the wallpaper for me! Just look at her being all nimble climbing around like she's a teenager! My mom kicks butt! 

I do realize that this post and last week's both have photos of my family climbing around on top of the washer to help me out. I'm so lucky to have such a helpful family and also very lucky that I'm the one taking the photos lol! 

So now we need to add the piece of pretty trim to the front of the plywood to make it look like a thick slab, install the counter, install the new light, and then I get to style it all up. I'm still pondering a few last minute projects for this room since we will have some time to spare before the 6 week deadline. I'll just be over here making myself crazy, over thinking every little detail until then! 

Be sure to head over to the One Room Challenge website and check out the rest of the designers' progress! There are so many incredible designers taking part in this challenge. I can't wait to see what everyone does! Click my post title to take to you straight to it. Thank you for stopping by!