Meet Maiden D'Shade, Week 22

Hello fellow Type A readers! I am so excited to be here guest posting today {my first guest post}!My name is Kim and I blog at MaidenD'Shade.

It's mostly a crafty blog but there's posts about food, thrift shopping, and upcycling, too. I'm married to a wonderful man and I have two lovely daughters. One just turned 16 and the other is 8, which is hard to wrap my head around... they can't be this old already! Anyway, I grew up in southern AZ but now reside in upstate NY. Two completely different worlds but both have shaped me into who I am. I love working with my hands whether it's playing the piano, cooking, crafting, or techy stuff (I'm a bit of a gadget nerd). I'm also kind of an introvert so blogging is really great for me! I've only been doing it since May, so I'm still a newbie.

I was so honored when Tammy invited me to be here today. It didn't take me very long to figure out what I wanted to share with you today. And I was happy to have this motivation to finally tackle this eyesore project! We bought our house nearly 5 years ago. It's a few decades old. It is a serious fixer-upper. Head to toe, inside and out. Slowly, one project at a time, we are getting it done. I'm sharing one of those projects with you all today.

Here is the before:

Know what it is? (Besides ugly)

Not every home has one. It's a laundry chute. I absolutely love having it!  This project has been on the to do list ever since we bought the house. In the years we've been here I have been brainstorming how I wanted this to look. I didn't want this to be a hugely expensive project. I decided I wanted it to look a little more substantial, newer... a simple face lift.

The first thing was to remove the door and the current hardware, which was buried in I don't know how many layers of paint.  I had to pry it off with a screw driver after the screws were removed.

Then I covered the surrounding wall and the chute with plastic and sprayed paint stripper on the door and the frame.

After 20-30 minutes I scraped off the layers of paint, as directed on the can.

Gross.

Then I sanded it all smooth.

I decided to install cove molding around the outside, just to dress it up a bit. I tried to teach myself how to use the miter saw (Hubs was out of town). I cut one piece. Fail. So I waited several days until the hubs was home and he showed me. Then I cut the rest of the pieces. I attached the molding with liquid nails. Love that stuff!

Why is it my polish is always chipped when I take pictures??

Then I filled all the gaps, primed it, and painted it.

I then caulked everywhere that needed it.

And lastly, I installed {self closing!} hinges, and a new knob. Hopefully there will be no more slamming of the chute door! A girl can dream.

Here is a side by side before/after:

What do you think? Much better, right? You think my family will use it more often now?? Yeah,me either.

Thank you for sticking through this long-ish post (I even left a lot out!). And thank you, Tammy,for having me over today so I could get this done, and meet some of your readers! Hope you all have a great week!

Kim thanks for being a guest, what a great post.  I would definately use the laundry, so cute!