Hey there! Today I’m sharing the transformation of my laundry room window. From builder-grade drab to custom designed fab! I’m sorry if you’re sick of seeing my laundry room already, but I’ve done so many neat little projects in here that I must share!
So here’s the “before” of the window if you needed a reminder. The venetian blinds came with the house, and I’ve left them installed on most other windows, but for in here – they had to go. My design board incorporated a bamboo shad so I had to remove the venetians.
I hung the new bamboo shade, but it still didn’t look “finished”. I knew I wanted to add some custom framing to it somehow, but I was worried about the marble sill that already existed. Was I really going to try and take that sucker out? Would it look weird if I just left it there and pretended like it didn’t exist?
In true Lindsay fashion, I decided to take the easy way out and leave it there. I was just going to build around it, and hope it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. (Teaser: I think I made a good choice.)
So here is the design I decided on. I googled a bunch of “window frames” and decided I liked this look best. I think we can classify it as craftsman, yes?
Supplies:
1 – 8′ piece of 1×2 poplar board
I gave them all a couple coats of pure white paint and cut them according to my drawing.
I used my nail gun to nail in the two side pieces first. I simply aligned them with the top and bottom of the window and used a level to ensure they were straight as I placed about 3 nails in each piece.
Here it is with just the side pieces nailed in:
Next I nailed in the 1×2 poplar board to the top. I placed a nail going down from the top into the side pieces of pine.
And another piece of pine:
And finally the top piece of poplar board.
The bottom of the window is almost identical to the top except there’s one less 1×2 poplar board at the bottom.
I nailed the 1×2 underneath the marble sill in only 2 places – from underneath the 1×2 going up into each side piece of pine. I caulked all the seems and did some touch up painting to finish the project. Ensuring the gap between the marble and the 1×2 was caulked really well was crucial.
Here is the finished product:
As it turns out – the thickness of the pine boards are almost flush with the marble which really helps disguise it.
And that was it! Pretty simple project that makes a huge improvement in my opinion. And cheap! The total cost of the wood for the entire thing was less than $25!
From this:
To this!
Comment and let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions! I love hearing from you all!