Laundry room help please, PIPs (long!)

[narockshard]

This is my first attempt at attaching pictures so I hope it works.

We have not touched the laundry room since me moved into our house last August, but we had to have some plumbing work done and they had to cut a hole in the drywall to access some pipe. The previous owners, who finished the basement themselves, just put a vent over the hole so it looked pretty natural, but I guess the hole needs to be bigger to actually access the plumbing.

Sooo, I'm looking for some suggestions on how best to disguise the area while still keeping access to the plumbing. My thought was maybe doing wainscoting on the wall and cutting a little door or something that will be hidden. The problem with that is I'm not sure if wainscoting will work in the whole room because there is a breaker box on one wall, and the windows have big ledges.

I realize the room is pretty terrible, and I hate the drop ceiling but it's not really an option to change that entirely right now. Is it possible to make drop ceilings look any better? Anyway, I'm looking forward to your suggestions. This will be my first big reno project that involves more than just painting! I'm not really handy, but it's a small room in the basement so I think it's safe to learn there

And FYI, I plan on painting the room a light turquoise, painting the cupboards white, and making some roman shades for the windows, though it will be hard to part with the moose print curtains. Just. kidding.

[kaylie]

We have access panels that are framed and pop out pretty easily. I think you could do wainscoting or bead board and cut it around the breaker panel. We just put bead board in our laundry room and I love it.

[floridakat]

Yikes. Someone actually picked that wall color? LOL. I would probably just frame it out and hang a door, something along the lines of this: www.amazon.com/custom-breakers-electrical-plumbing-direction/dp/B0056UF4OG

You could DIY it pretty inexpensively. I think your other ideas for freshening up the space sound lovely!

[narockshard]

May 16, 2012 10:09:55 GMT -5 floridakat said:

Yikes. Someone actually picked that wall color? LOL. I would probably just frame it out and hang a door, something along the lines of this: www.amazon.com/custom-breakers-electrical-plumbing-direction/dp/B0056UF4OG

You could DIY it pretty inexpensively. I think your other ideas for freshening up the space sound lovely!

Would you put a little door like that with or without wainscoting? My concern is that it will look a little funny if I just have that door on the otherwise blank wall (kind of like a doggy door or something). Or would painting it the same color as the walls work? And thank you, I'm looking forward to the changes, that wall color hurts my eyes!

[ssmjlm]

I would just do a door and probably paint it the same color as the wall to blend in. It's in a laundry room and in your basement, I think people will realize it's some sort of access panel.

[kaylie]

Yeah - I don't think it will look weird, but it'll obviously be a panel. I think that's fine since you won't be having dinner parties in there or anything and anyone who sees it will realize it's a functional room.

[narockshard]

Ha good points. I guess my husband was right I was all worried about it looking funky, but if D&R girls are giving the go ahead than it must be ok! Thanks so much, this helps me out a lot.

[kaylie]

Also, you might be able to buy new panels for the drop ceiling and maybe paint the frames white? I think it might make it blend in more.

[FoxInFiji]

We just did this in our bathroom. We hid a large access panel in the wainscoting for our shower shut off valves. Previously we had no access to them so in our bathroom gut I wanted to make sure everything was easily accessible and it's already come in handy when we realized the plumber accidentally swapped the placement of the hot and cold lines.

Now you see it:


Now you don't:



We used a piece of cabinet grade birch plywood and put the stiles on the top of it to hide the seams on the sides. The bottom sits in a notch behind the baseboard (the drywall is cut a 1/2" shorter there) and the top was supposed to be held in place by a hidden magnetic latch. After we installed it we found out that the latch wasn't heavy enough to hold the door tight (and it was the heaviest duty latch we could find being a double magnet one) so we stuck a small screw in the top that is easily removed when needed. It's close enough to the rail that it's not very noticeable and we're going to paint the head of it white to blend in even better.

Sorry I have better pictures showing the access door half open that would help show how we constructed it. I can upload them tonight if that would help.

This is our main bathroom in the house. It serves as a guest bathroom, powder room, and future kid's bathroom so we wanted it blend in as much as possible.

[narockshard]

Fox, that's brilliant! I love how you hid the seams like that! This might be the route I go, thanks sooo much for posting this.

[floridakat]

That's a great solution, Fox! OP, I wouldn't be too concerned about it being noticeable since it's a utility room. It it were me and I went with a frame/door option, I would probably paint it white to match your other trim in there.

[FoxInFiji]

May 16, 2012 11:12:38 GMT -5 narockshard said:

Fox, that's brilliant! I love how you hid the seams like that! This might be the route I go, thanks sooo much for posting this.

Glad I could help. I agree with the pps though it's just a laundry room so it's not such a big deal to just have a regular access door. You can buy quick and easy plastic ones like this at big box hardware stores:



They are less work to install and some can be painted. Otherwise if you just did a chair rail and painted the bottom half of the room the same white color as the access door it would blend in and not be very noticeable. You husband might not like me giving your such grand ideas.

[boiler717]

So smart!