Bob: A part of the original plan for the utility room was to surround the water heater with something pretty, to hide pipes and stuff. A unique opportunity presented itself when Nan espied these oak sectional doors on a cart at the front of Lowe's for an unbelievable price. It seems the slide hardware was missing. No problemo, said I, for we need no hardware. The faint odor of charred denim permeated the checkout line, so fast did the money fly from my pants pocket!
Of course, I had to rebuild them, first thing. I moved the hinges from the sides to the edges, chiseling out the wood so they'd be flush, while allowing the the good oak side to show. When we refinished the thresholds and shelves for the kitchen, these doors came along for the ride. This picture shows the first coat of polyurethane.
Nan: We seriously considered not having a cover for the water heater after we discovered
how expensive it could be. I just happened to see this set of doors on a cart off to one side
of the check-out stand as we were paying for some other items. It had $10 on it. I called
it to Bob's attention, and when he walked over he saw the $5 tag. Wow! We felt almost like
we'd won the lottery.
Bob: This second door compliments the first one very nicely. It, too, was priced rightly at a mere $17. Only weeks before, we compared various combinations of louvered doors, finished and unfinished, at up to $96 apiece. Eeeg! Here, you see it stained with the Minwax light oak stain. We are very happy with the results, as you shall see.
Nan: This is a perfect solution for hiding the "utility" in the Utility Room.
Eventually we are going to enclose the electical panel, and then the Utility Room will be a huge storage area for pots, pans, appliances and other acoutrements for the kitchen. Hidden assets, so to speak.
We also will lay carpet in here, and place hangers for a couple of marble queen ivy plants
over the windows.
Bob: In the process of fitting those doors, I split the stile on this old cabinet. Backing up is hard to do.
Nan: Where's Door Number Three? I suppose the one that's open on the cabinet being repaired could be called Door Number Three.
Anyhow, I told Bob not to mention his "accident" but he insisted that y'all not think that
he's perfect. Snort, chortle, and all that stuff!
Bob: Those two doors do a wonderful job of wrapping the water heater, and give a nice ambiance to this tiny room. Who'd a thunk so many things would fit in six by seven feet?
Nan: It's amazing what a difference the doors make. I suggested we reverse the hinges, and have the door open outward so we could get to the water heater without having to remove the doors. It works perfectly that way. Of course, we can always unscrew the doors from the wall if we ever have to do any serious repairs to the water heater. And this solution fits my criteria; pretty as well as functional. Thank you, Bob.
Bob: What a difference a door makes, twenty-four little inches...
Bob: Two of those things we left 'til later when we did the most work in this room were the windows and curtains. They didn't seem all that important in the middle of the winter. Since we were doing plenty of painting and window repairs in the kitchen at this time, we decided to catch these up to the rest of the room. This is the northeast window, overlooking the patio, with a new window stop and a coat of primer over the inside. The almost new storm windows were already here. The inner casements for these two windows will have to be rebuilt, either later this fall, or next summer (more likely). They will hold together until then.
Nan: These now have two coats of paint on them, and look very nice, considering they
really do need to be rebuilt. Lots of things to do later, that way we won't become bored.
Bob: Nan found these swell curtains at Goodwill. They really spruce things up.
Nan: I saw them at Goodwill: four panels and three valances for $5. I didn't even know where
I would use them, I just decided they were too good a bargain to pass up. I contemplated
using them in the kitchen, but they just seemed made for the utility room after we got them
to the house. I later decided to use the swag valences in here, because this is where I hung
the marble queen ivy. The swags let in the light the plants need.
Bob: Here is a shot of the northwest window, from the kitchen, which shows off the kitchen window curtains as well. The atmosphere is getting positively cheerful around here. Indeed, this is one of our favorite places to hang out when we are resting between tasks. Wait'll you see the houseplants.
Nan: Just a taste of the utility room as seen from the kitchen. When we get the carpet
installed and the plants hung, this room will pack a powerful punch. I love the idea of a
separate room for all my pots and pans and small appliances.
Bob: So, I finally got around to cutting a fine piece of throwaway shag carpet for the utility room. Here you see my layout, on the back of it, and partial cut-outs. It finally just got too cold to walk on that bare floor, and besides, I wanted to get the spare pieces of carpet out of the dining room.
Nan: OK, alright. Now I gotta vacuum. Oh, it's you who usually does the
vacuuming. Can I help it if you took over that very painful chore for me? Thanks, ILY!
Bob: And here it is, finally, a complete utility room! The carpet feels great between our toes, and it makes this room so much warmer in the winter. As you can see, we've moved in a considerable number of little blond cabinets, and some hanging plants as well. Gee, this feels just like home.
Nan: I love walking into this room, it's very cozy.
Bob: This is what all that cutting around was for, to make this look really filled in around the water heater. I think I did a pretty good job, and it also completes this room.
Nan: The utility room works exactly as we planned it. And Bob's right, it's done. (Almost) Pssssst! Don't tell Bob, but there is still One More Job to do in here. We gotta rebuild the windows. But, that's for some other day, week, month, year, decade, ahem! Century? Don't worry, we will eventually get the windows done.
BTW the carpet does not extend under the water heater, we just made it look like it does.