Laundry Room 7: Paddles to Dry my Laundry

I have been searching for the perfect solution to for a laundry room drying rack for years.  It’s the last step in my laundry room renovation, which has been going on for 5 years.  Yeah, you read that right.  Feel free to check out posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  It seemed like all the drying rack ideas I liked wouldn’t work for my room.  There’s no wall space to hang one like this and no ceiling space for something like this.  All I had to work with was the back of the door to the garage, but it’s limited space because the garage door opens into a corner and hits the closet door.  I don’t hang a lot of stuff to dry, but it would be nice to have someplace to put wet bathing suits or the occasional hanger.  Well I think I’ve FINALLY found a solution and the whole thing cost me around $10.I saw these paddles at A.C. Moore for $3.20 each last month and originally stopped to look at them for the surf shack room, but soon realized they’d be perfect for the beachy laundry room.  And because they are thin, they’re perfect for the back of the door to the garage.  They just needed a little paint!Speaking of paint, I thought this would be a great opportunity to use Webster’s Chalk Paint Powder. I am going to write a separate post on chalk paint this week, because what I started writing here began to take over this post.  So never fear, you’ll know all about chalk paint (if you don’t already) in a few days.  In the meantime check out the Webster’s website.  Basically, you add the powder and some water to a sample paint container from Lowe’s or Home Depot and voila — you’ve got your own chalk paint.   If I had a store, I’d totally be selling this stuff.First I painted each paddle in white chalk paint.  It’s the same white paint I use on my trim and doors, but now I have a chalk paint version.  I didn’t paint the back of the paddle because that would’ve been pointless.I let the white dry for less than 30 minutes, then I taped off a different striped pattern on each one.  I also made a starfish by laying out a few pieces of painters tape, drawing a really bad starfish and then cutting it out.  I thought this would be easier than trying to paint a starfish on the paddle.  It was super easy and so much faster.I painted each paddle a different color, which means I now have 3 more colors of chalk paint to use.  These were all regular wall paints I already had.  Two were samples, and one a leftover, but I could have used acrylic paint as well. You DO NOT have to wait until the paint dries to remove the tape, it’s actually better if you don’t.  It always makes such a difference when the tape comes off.  The last step was to sand them down.  I was going for a rustic kind of look.  These pictures show the difference before and after sanding.  Sorry they’re not very close up.The last step was to seal the paint with polycrylic, which is like polyurethane, but doesn’t turn your paint yellow.  This was especially necessary because I am going to be hanging wet clothing on these things and I don’t want any paint coming off on the clothes, especially that red!  I used this.

Now to hang them up.  But of course the door to the garage needed a little freshening up too.  First a little spackle, then some paint.  This picture makes the top hinge look like it’s brass/gold, but I swear they all match.  That was part of one of the earlier renovation projects.I painted the paddles while Smart Jr was at basketball one night, it was a quick process.   Then I hemmed and hawed for weeks about how I should attach them to the door.  I didn’t want to use the little hooks that came on the paddles because then the paddles would flop around as the door opened and closed.  Well I guess I finally got sick of staring at the paddles on my counter and put them up yesterday.  My method of choice?  Drill pilot holes with a countersink bit, two per paddle, then screw directly to the door.  The door is solid, so they’re well anchored.   The point of a countersink bit is that it makes a wider hole at the surface, so the head of the screw can be recessed below the surface.  Like this…But that looks so ugly!  Never fear, the point of recessing the screw head is so you can cover it.   I used spackled because wood putty makes me want to pull my hair out.  I just let it dry, wiped off the excess with a damp paper towel, then touched it up with more chalk paint.

Now I finally have a spot to dry some clothes.  Yay!! I am purposely not showing you more of the laundry room, because now that the last thing is done I can finally have a big reveal!!!  Yay!!  As soon as I finish up the laundry I’ll get right on that.

Smart Girl

Here’s the complete list of posts that led up to this reveal:

1: Initial Renovation 
2: Shelf Over Stacked Washer/Dryer 
3: Wallpaper, Outlets, and Doors
4: Laundry Basket Shelf and Counter Top
5: Wall Shelves
6: W-A-S-H Letters
7: Paddles as Drying Racks
8: Final Reveal!

Linking up here:

Domestically Speaking